Gone Wylde 06: No Quarter Given
by Concolor44
Summary: The ISB and the Trenchant Furs are closing in on Karl, and Winter is closing in on Wendy. Between the tension and the isolation, will either of them come through intact?  Rated for violence in some chapters.
1. Chapter 1  Discovery  Part A

**_Gone Wylde: A Journey of Discovery_**

by Clint McInnes

**_Book Six: No Quarter Given_**

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_**Chapter One – Discovery – Part A**_

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**I was court-martialed in my absence,  
****and sentenced to death in my absence,  
****so I said they could shoot me in my absence.**

**-**_**Brendan Francis Behan**_

##

_** Wednesday 21 December 2016, 9:30am **_

Rajid looked up from his desk as the shaggy form of his number-one field operative lumbered through his door. He glanced at the clock and said, "Ah, Capra. Punctual, I see. How quaint. What's the occasion?"

"Ha-ha. Yer a real riot, Raj." He dropped a thin sheaf of papers on the desk and took a seat. "It's jus' like ya t'ought. Ever' one of 'em peters out ta nuttin'. Twenny er toity comp'nies inta da loop, da trail jus' disappeahs. Damndes' t'ing ya ever seen."

"And the commonality?"

"Commonal … Oh. Yah, dat too." He frowned and gave his superior a look of disbelief. "Ya nailed it. Dere's at least one French outfit in ever' trail, an', yeah, it always pops up in da list as a prime numbah. How da _hell_ didja come up wit' dat crazy bit?"

"I will admit it seemed like a long-shot at first. But I had my suspicions ever since the investigators picked up that discrepancy during the third-quarter audit last October, especially after they linked it up with fifty-two more previously undetected deposits. It was extremely fortunate for us that we underwent that systems upgrade over the summer. Had the hardware interface not forced us to write new algorithms for validation, we still wouldn't know anything about it."

"Yeah. About dat. Ya evah come up wid a decent explanation f'r why he done it?"

"Do you mean, why did he transfer nine-hundred and forty-six million dollars into our field service account structure?"

"Yeah. Dat ain't chump change in ennybody's book."

"Indeed. To answer your question, we have nothing concrete. Some of us have our own pet theories, but the only way we will ever know for sure is to ask him. He obviously wanted to remain unknown, given the way the deposits were timed and executed. When that bright young lady from Cryptology identified the pattern of anonymous 'donations' and correlated it with our master list, it helped greatly to solidify my probability matrix."

"Proba-who?"

"It is a logical construct that indexes disparate lines of deductive premise to obtain the commonality in a cipher."

Capra cocked his head to one side and said, "I t'ink you been goin' ta too many o' dem management seminars."

"You should be grateful. It relieves you of the responsibility of attending them yourself."

"Uh … yeah. Whatevah."

"Just so. In any case, when the total amount that had been surreptitiously added to our coffers over the last two years came to _exactly_ twice the amount that Gulo liberated when he went rogue, I was sure."

"But what's da prime numbahs got ta do wid' it?"

"You would need to be familiar with certain details of his psych profile to get the reference. Our Mr. Gulo is a borderline obsessive-compulsive. He has a fondness for prime numbers, and tends to order his possessions or arrange items to accommodate groups of primes. The patterns are quite subtle; essentially invisible, if you don't know what to look for. As far as we were able to determine, he is unaware of this tendency. He was not told because research has shown that such furs, when apprised of their condition, tend to dwell upon it to an unhealthy degree. He was unstable enough without the added burden."

"An' da French? Where do dey figure in?"

"From Phoebe Reynard."

"Phoebe? But she wud'n French! She's from Ari-freakin-zona!"

"True. However, the name 'Reynard' is Old French. Unconsciously, he was paying a tribute to her memory."

Capra sat back in his chair and stared at the mongoose. "Yer serious about all dis shit."

"Completely."

"Sounds like a loada psycho-crapola ta me."

"I assure you, the pieces of this puzzle link up quite sufficiently to satisfy our profilers."

"Well. Great." He shook his head and snorted. "Dat's jus' ducky. So we know it's him. But we still got nuttin' as far as findin' him."

"Perhaps. But we know he is in New England; all the legwork that your team has done since your last relocation proves that. You've uncovered multiple positive ID's in Albany, Burlington, New York City, and Providence, besides trailing him from Boston out to Drury."

Capra made a disgusted sound. "An' den losin' him."

"In retrospect that was unavoidable. We were not prepared for dealing with someone of his abilities, and he _certainly_ seems to have anticipated _our_ every move."

"Ya can say dat again."

"But the case isn't as bad as all that. Our boys in the Hack Cell have not finished with him yet. Dryden was telling me earlier that he thinks they'll be able to trace down some of the lines, given enough computing power." He picked up a form from the desk and passed it to Capra. "I've authorized his department for unlimited access of Cray #3, beginning Saturday. Wilson is to have every other user transferred out to the remaining systems by Friday's noontide, which leaves his group two full shifts to get #3 clean and ready to work."

Capra gave him that stare again. "Ya givin' Dryden's bunch da whole t'ing?"

"The Cray? Yes."

"Dat's one mudda-ass-load o' computin' powah, Raj."

"I realize that. But Gulo's systems and techniques are sure to be insanely sophisticated. We will need every advantage we can grasp."

"But … da _whole t'ing?_ Whooja hafta kill ta get dat?"

"The clearance for this effort comes from the Joint Chiefs."

The canine closed his muzzle slowly and nodded once. "Uh-_huh_. So now it's down ta 'shut up an' do whatcher told'."

"Essentially."

"I guess dat 'splains his group workin' over da holiday, too."

"It does. And what it boils down to is this: there are many furs in very strategic positions who want Gulo contained. Some of them are not especially concerned about his viability after containment, but many of us feel that he might be salvageable. So this will be dealt with …" And here he tapped his fingertips together a few times. "… delicately."

"Delicately?"

"Very much so."

"So … ya don' wanna just take 'im out?"

"No."

"Ah-huh. I t'ought I heard some scuttlebutt 'bout makin' contact wid 'im."

"I wouldn't be surprised. Secrets are hardly worth the name around here."

The canine mulled that over for a bit. "Ya really t'inkin' ya might get 'im back on board? Seriously?"

"That is the goal, yes."

Capra seemed to find that idea extremely amusing. "Yeah. Ol' Beorn back in da ISB saddle. Heh! Dat'll be da day."

"I will admit that the concept doesn't _immediately_ appeal, knowing what we know of the fur. But it is possible."

"If ya find 'im."

"Correct. Assuming we find him."

"Ya know what dey say 'bout assumin'."

"I am well aware of the classic pun. But what would our work be without some assumptions?"

"Yeah, yeah." He waved off the objection, and then fell silent, moving a curious finger back and forth across his muzzle. "So somebuddy's gonna hafta ackshully _talk_ ta Gulo."

"At some point, yes. Direct communication is probably our best tactic."

"Damn." He shook his head in commiseration. "Dat poor sap. Who ya got picked fer dis job? Gettin' to him, dat is."

Rajid leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, giving the canine a level and contemplative look. He seemed to come to a decision. "We have a candidate identified that we feel will do an outstanding job."

"Bettah be somefur wid a good head. He'll hafta t'ink on his feet fer sure, he don' wanna get snuffed. Gulo ain't no daisy patch."

"Oh, he has an excellent record of doing just that. Expert in surveillance, besides insertion and extraction, and nearly two hundred field missions."

"Hoo! Dat sounds good."

"Yes indeed. Plus …"

Capra waited a few seconds before asking, "Plus what?"

"Plus … he knows Gulo personally."

Capra sat up straight at that remark, putting both feet on the floor. He was beginning to get a slight tingle of discomfort at the back of his neck. "Dis guy … he's been wit' da Bureau a while?"

"Yes. Nearly a quarter century."

"Ah-huh." He rubbed the side of his muzzle with one paw. "An' ya say he knows Gulo?"

"Yes."

"How well?"

"They were teammates."

His brows drew together as his muzzle fell into a grim line. "Hell ya say." He slapped his knees and stood. "Well, ya tell him fer me I wouldn' wish dat job on a rabid skunk." And he walked toward the door.

"Oh, come now, Capra. Don't be like that. You know as well as I do there is no one else in the division as well suited. Believe me, I looked."

He turned as he put his paw on the knob. "Raj … I t'ought we wuz friends. Ya got a life insurance policy on me I don' know about?"

"Capra, please!" The Director ticked off the items on his fingers. "You'll have plenty of backup. You can pick your own surveillance team. You'll have as much time as you need after locating him to formulate a contact plan. You can conduct this operation any way you see fit." He dropped his paws to the table. "Now tell me that is not a fair deal."

Capra looked at him as the seconds dragged by. At length he stepped back toward the desk and sat down. "I ain't gettin' in any kinda position where dat guy might have a shot at me."

"That is only prudent."

"I get ta spec out all da electronics m'self."

"A wise course of action."

"An' you an' Louise gonna take me out ta Brianno's t'night an' buy me da biggest porterhouse dey got."

"… Beg pardon?"

"A condemned man gets a last meal, don't he?"

Raj chuckled. "Certainly. I'll see you at our house at eighteen-hundred, then, 'condemned man'."

"Damn straight ya will."

##

_** Tuesday 27 December 2016, 4:30pm **_

George Cranfur sat slumped in his chair, scowling, his arms defiantly crossed. An old "analog-electronic" clock hung on the wall at one end of the interrogation room, marking the passage of each second with a loud 'tick'. A large two-way mirror dominated the opposite wall. The only access door was in the middle of one of the long walls between them. George had been here, answering what sounded to him like the same few questions over and over and over for the last hour. Initially, he'd been more than happy to help the FIA in its investigation, but by now the blush was definitely off the rose.

Robert Todd stood in one corner, leaning against the wall, watching the feline. He pulled out his pipe and a pouch of aromatic tobacco, and began deliberately to fill it and tamp it down. "Can you really be that sure of your aim, Mr. Cranfur? The low light conditions …"

"Had nothing to do with it!" George looked up at the Captain. "Like I told you – at least fifteen times – he wasn't ten feet away."

"Three meters."

"Whatever! Have it your way! Three meters. Three paces! Half a car-length! I don't care how ya wanna measure it, he was _right there!_ No _way_ I could've missed. I seen him fall. I seen him bleed."

"Yeah. He bled all right." He looked across the room at Amos Phillips. "How much blood did we recover, Lieutenant?"

"Better than a liter. Near a liter and a half."

"Right. Liter and a half. And someone that size has maybe five liters total. That's right at a quarter of his supply."

George leaned his elbows on the table and cradled his head in his paws. "Yeah. You've said that three or four times, too." He looked up at Captain Todd. "Which is why, _just like I already told you,_ I couldn't believe he'd get up and walk off. Not leaving that much blood behind. Not with better than half a dozen slugs in him."

"Yes. That's what you said. Only he did."

"Yeah. He did."

"So you must not have hit him in a vital spot."

"And I'm tellin' ya, I did."

"But he got up and walked off anyway."

George's voice was very low. "Yeah."

"And you have no explanation for it."

"There _**is**_ no explanation for it. Not unless he's some kinda ghost or zombie or something."

"Surely you don't believe in ghosts, Officer Cranfur."

"No. I don't."

"Well." Robert lit the pipe and took a puff. "That much we can agree on."

"Look, can I go now?"

Robert nursed his smoke and looked over at Amos, who gave him a very small nod. "Yeah. But don't go anywhere in case we need to talk to you again."

"Fine. I can't imagine what I could tell you I haven't already, but … fine." He picked up his hat and left.

Amos came over and sat down at the table. "He was telling the truth, as far as he knows it."

"Uh-huh. He wasn't hiding anything."

"Cap?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't like this."

That brought a wry snort from the older fur. "I'd worry about you if you did."

"Do you really think, honestly, that we've got some sort of … supernatural being on our paws?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

Amos sat on the edge of the table and ruminated. At dawn this day the Agency had brought in a professional tracker. They'd followed the injured wolf's spoor through the forest to the spot where he'd bedded down briefly in a pine thicket, and on from there across better than twenty klicks of Alpena County out to Thunder Bay. He'd tracked a dead-straight line that led a few degrees south of due east. They never came across any other blood sign after those first initial spots at the forest's edge, and his trail vanished at the shore. The tracker was certain that they'd been less than half an hour behind him. In fact, they still had people out there, combing the shoreline, watching for him to come back to land. Needless to say, this spawned a great deal of discussion and dispute.

Cap spoke up. "You ain't serious about that zombie theory, are you?"

"It wasn't _my_ theory."

He gave a grunt in response. "Got any other ideas?"

"I dunno. A mutant, maybe?"

That brought a disbelieving snort. "You've been watching too many science fiction shows, Phillips."

"Well, what's _**your**_ explanation, then?"

"I don't know. I don't put a theory together until I've got something concrete to work on." He shrugged, and added, "I've heard rumors from time to time about government projects that were looking into accelerated healing …"

"What, like regeneration?"

"Call it what you like. But they were only rumors."

"Maybe not."

"Hmh. Maybe not."

"You know anyfur we could talk to about that?"

"Not off the top of my head."

"Might be worth looking into."

"It might at that." He looked up at Amos and said, "You hungry?"

"Little bit, yeah."

"C'mon. Buy ya dinner."

"Works for me."

##

_** Wednesday 28 December 2016, 11:30am **_

"Sir?"

Capra's head swung around and identified the agent that had spoken. "Yah?"

"Dryden got a hit."

"No shit?" Capra got up and trotted over to peer at his subordinate's monitor. He frowned and remarked, "Ya know, last I looked, Denver wudden aroun' heah anywhere close."

"But it's in this country. This trail wasn't before. He's been following it back and forth between Asia and Africa for a couple dozen iterations."

"An' dat means what?"

"It means he's closer now than he ever was before. That's why he sent us this heads-up." The agent followed the text a bit with his eyes and nodded. "Says here he expects to be able to trace it back to source now. The stumbling block before was always that the trail faded out offshore somewhere." He pointed to the last paragraph. "See, he's figured out a way to get past the embedded firewalls. They adapt to counter all the standard intrusion programs, so had to teach his 'drill' to adapt the same way."

"Eh. Dat'll be good, if it don't go offshore again."

The workstation beeped again as a follow-up message appeared. The agent opened it and scanned the paragraph, his eyes widening. He gave a low whistle.

"What now?"

"He's already tracked it to a server in Burlington, Vermont."

"An' does it stop dere?"

"Yes! Capra! He's right in our back yard!"

"Yeah, we kinda figgah'd he would be. He got da address yet?"

"He'll have the guy's account numbers, hat size, and fried-egg preference in about an hour. He's just got to link up and bypass a few firewalls."

Capra patted the fellow on his shoulder and said, "Keep me posted. We head out soon as we know where ta go."

##


	2. Chapter 1  Discovery  Part B

_**Chapter One – Discovery – Part B**_

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##

_** Wednesday 28 December 2016, 5:10pm **_

Constable Stèphane Durand did not enjoy the cold. Given his preferences, the poodle would rather spend a quiet evening patrolling the streets of Toronto in his nice, warm cruiser. On an average night, the most exciting thing to happen would be discovering that the local Krispy Kreme had fresh, hot doughnuts. In his ten months on the force there had only been two occasions when he'd had to spend any considerable amount of time away from his vehicle, and both those times had been during pleasant weather. This sedentary schedule was beginning to make itself evident in the Constable's growing paunch.

These FIA agents constituted a major cramp in his comfortable routine. Not only did they display a total indifference to cold, and a distressing lack of awareness of a body's need for sleep; not only did they seem to be able to live entirely on bad coffee and stale Danishes; but they also insisted on conducting their stakeout on foot. So here he was, much farther from home than he liked, stuck in a freezing copse on a dismal point of land jutting into Lake Huron north of Port Elgin.

"Constable?"

His head jerked up to stare at the old cat standing beside him. "What?"

"There something wrong with your scanner?"

"Ah … no."

"Then why aren't you using it?"

Grumbling silently to himself, the disgruntled canine put the device up to his eyes and gave the shoreline a perfunctory examination.

Drifter's muzzle twisted in disgust. How he'd ever gotten paired up with this total waste of fur he didn't know. Bad karma was all he could figure. He went back to monitoring the shore north of their position, glancing surreptitiously at the poodle a couple of times a minute to make sure he was awake.

A low buzz sounded and Drifter picked up his com unit. "Yah?"

"Just checking in." Michelle Moreno's musical voice came to him. "Making sure you two are both still alive and kicking."

"So far, so good," he replied. He continued in a much lower voice, "though I can't speak for the Constable's safety if he don't tighten up."

Michelle chuckled softly. "Cut him as much slack as you can. Base out." She turned to the agent beside her and said, "Poor Drifter."

"Better him than me."

The hybrid femme had to agree. It had been like pulling teeth to get any cooperation out of the local Canadian officials, and she suspected that they'd been sent the dregs of the various departments represented. Constable Durand was an extreme example, but his attitude of sullen acquiescence was fairly representative of what they'd run into since arriving the day before.

"Hey, Brenner, my unit's chronometer is way off. What time is it?"

The Pinscher looked at the display on his scanner. "Quarter past five."

"Ah. So that leaves us, what, maybe half an hour of light left?"

"Something like that."

"I hate dusk for a job like this."

"Know what you mean. Infrared's dicey until it gets pretty dark out. You've got decent night vision, though, don't you?"

"Yeah. Better than average."

"Lucky." He put the scanner back to his eyes and swept the shore.

Michelle was about to do the same when she noticed him stiffen. "What? Got something?"

"I … maybe." He stared hard through the unit.

"How big is the boat? Can you tell if it's powered?"

"Ah … there's no boat. Just somefur coming out of the water."

"A _swimmer?_ In _this_ weather?"

"It's about three hundred meters out, where the ice breaks up. Call Station Five and find out if they can see him."

Michelle did so, shortly getting confirmation. "Looks like the target's about halfway between our positions. You got a positive yet?"

"Hang on. He fell back through the ice. Climbing out again."

Michelle shook her head in disbelief. "Swimming. Fifteen below, and that fur's swimming. What is this guy, a polar bear? I thought the lab boys said he was a wolf."

"Don't think he's a bear. Build's all wrong." He peered through his viewer and said, "Subject is tall and very thin. Long fur, looks black." He glanced back and caught her eyes. "And he doesn't appear to be wearing anything."

"That's good enough for me." She grabbed her satchel, threw the strap over her shoulder, and headed toward the beach, checking her automatic. Brenner was right behind her.

The figure hardly paused at all when it got to the lake's edge, stopping only long enough to shake most of the water from his fur before heading east again at a measured lope.

"C'mon, Brenner, we don't hustle he's gonna get to the woods before we do!" Both agents began running.

They had closed to less than a hundred meters when they heard a shout from north of them. The agents from Station Five had been a little closer, and were nearly between the wolf and the first fringes of forest. One of them called to him to stop. He did, and dropped to a crouch.

This area was sparsely settled. A grid of unpaved lanes extended from both sides of State Road 6, but houses were few and far between. Only two lights could be seen from where they stood, and these were some distance off. The two agents approached the hunkered figure, guns aimed.

It did them little good.

Michelle saw them walking slowly, one of them motioning for the wolf to lie on the ground. The shaggy creature seemed to look back and forth between them … then he jumped. And Michelle stopped, her muzzle hanging open.

Both of the other agents fired. One of them may have hit the wolf, because it looked to her as if he twitched violently in mid-air. But it didn't stop him. His prodigious leap landed him behind the two agents where he spun instantly and lashed out. From fifty meters away, Michelle heard bones snap. The two furs dropped like hanks of wet rope.

She and Brenner broke into a sprint. The wolf evidently didn't know there were others headed his way, because he knelt over one of the agents, put a foot against his side, yanked the agent's arm _off_, and began gnawing on it. Brenner stopped, aimed, and fired his pistol. The slug hit the rocky ground in front of the wolf and sprayed grit into his face. He howled and jumped back, pawing at his eyes. Michelle got off a couple of shots herself, and felt sure she'd hit him with one of them. Brenner fired twice more, and the wolf fell back on his rear, howling even louder. But as soon as he determined where the shots were coming from, he got back to his feet and took off for the woods at a speed they could never hope to match. He quickly disappeared among the scrub and scattered conifers. Brenner swore loudly.

Michelle grabbed her com unit and notified the rest of the team what had happened. "And get an ambulance out here, stat!"

Her partner was examining the two on the ground. "McFadden's dead. That bastard broke his neck."

"What about the Canadian?"

The Pinscher gave him a quick once-over. "He's alive, but I don't know for how long. The right side of his chest is caved in. He's gotta have a collapsed lung. An' his … damn. His arm's gone."

Brenner stayed on the line with the other team members until the EMTs arrived.

Michelle didn't wait for anything. She hot-footed it back to her Land Rover and took off for the eastern side of the peninsula.

##

_** 5:33pm **_

"I'm in position. Don't do anything to spook this bastard, okay?"

"Right," Cap answered. "Just you don't miss."

"Don't worry."

Special Agent Michelle Moreno lay at length on the roof of her vehicle at the end of Georgian Drive. The icy fringe of the Bay was visible just to her left, and beyond that, beyond the horizon, the rest of Ontario. She propped her AA-12 shotgun on the bipod, checked the 40-round drum magazine for proper engagement, and scanned the sparse tree line for her objective. She was counting on his not being familiar with the area, and on his sticking to his well-established line of travel. If her calculations were right, he ought to be jogging out of the woods twenty or thirty meters in front of her any second now.

She was ready for his speed. She'd seen him move, and knew she'd have to take him down from a distance.

She was prepared to deal with his physical power. He'd demonstrated ample evidence of almost unbelievable strength, and even given her high degree of proficiency at paw-to-paw combat, she had no desire to take him on, even if he _had_ been recently wounded.

What she hadn't taken into consideration was his stealth.

It might have been the exceptional hearing she'd inherited from her father. Perhaps she heard a small stone rolling away from a careful footfall. Or possibly it was the night vision her mother had graced her with. Some slight peripheral flicker may have given her subliminal warning. She never really knew. What she did know was that something prompted her to roll off her roof a bare instant before the black-furred horror smashed into it. Glass from the side windows exploded and scattered across the rough sand.

She nailed a perfect three-point landing, both feet and her tail, and swept the barrel of the automatic shotgun up into line with her attacker. He was already leaping after her, but her finger was faster. Her drum was loaded with shells that alternated between #2 buckshot and slugs, and the weapon launched five of them each second. She didn't know how many of them made contact, but the arc of his leap turned into a fragmented tumble. She spun away from him, intending to end up behind him where she could spray him again, but a flailing limb shot out as he passed and crashed into the side of her head. The gathering night exploded in streaks and spots of flashing light, and she sank to her paws and knees.

Time slowed and the earth tilted. She was aware of his presence, aware of the stench he gave off, and gagged in response. With a huge effort, she scooted backwards, away from him, as he grabbed for her. He fell too, then, and struggled unsuccessfully to regain his feet. Her mind began to clear, the stupefaction lessening, and she realized that she must have hit one of his legs. She realized also that she was no longer holding her shotgun. She looked around blankly. Where had she dropped it?

The wolf lunged at her, and she barely evaded his grasping paws. Her shoulder bumped into the driver's door of her vehicle. She had to get farther away. Knowledge of what he'd done to his earlier victims bobbed to the surface of her mind, and she fought a rising panic. She twisted around, meaning to move to the rear of the Land Rover. She knew she couldn't let him …

He got a paw on her right ankle and jerked her down.

_His touch … so vile, so repugnant … like slipping a foot into a cesspool._

The smell was getting worse. Her stomach gave up and she ejected its contents into his face. He gave no reaction to that, and heaved himself up on his other arm. She kicked at that arm and he flopped forward onto his muzzle, but he rose again and met her gaze.

His form began to glow, a dark, viscous shimmer that made her skin crawl over the length of her body. And the shimmer started to flow down his arm, flow toward where he held her ankle.

Her right paw closed over the hilt of the heavy knife strapped to her thigh. She pulled it free, raised it high, and brought it down with all the strength at her command.

The wolf jerked and howled, shuddering in a violent spasm that resulted in her being slammed hard against the side of the Land Rover, and her hold on consciousness got very tenuous indeed. She thought she heard gunfire over the wolf's grating cries, but it was hard to know through the sound of roaring water that seemed to make up most of her world. Eventually the sounds began to group themselves into patterns she thought she could recognize. One of them even sounded like …

… _Michelle …_

"Wuzzit?"

"Michelle, damn it, you better _not_ die on me!"

"… Cap?"

"Michelle! Thank God! Where are you hurt?"

"Whuh … where's th' … wolf?"

"Gone. He ran off. Drifter said he thought he hit him a couple of times, but he was running off already, holding one arm to his chest." He looked her over anxiously. "Are you okay? Nothing broken?"

"Uff." Michelle sat up and rubbed the back of her head. "Ouch."

"Let me take a look at it. He hit you on the head?"

"Yeah. Couple times." She looked around at her vehicle, and at the large dent in the door. "Really though, I think what happened once was that he hit the Rover _with_ me."

"Strong bastard."

"You got no idea." She used both paws to massage her neck. "Cap?"

"Yeah?"

"You get a good look at him?"

"Eh. I could probably pick him out of a line up. How do you mean?"

"Did he look to you like he was …"

He waited a few seconds and then prompted her. "Look like he what?"

"Like he was glowing?"

Cap raised an eyebrow. "Glowing?"

"Yeah. He had hold of my leg. And he started … well, glowing. Weird, really weird. It was black."

"Black? How does _black_ glow?"

"Dunno. But that's what it looked like. Like he was covered with oil or molasses or something. And it was glowing."

"I, um, didn't see anything like that. You sure it wasn't just the knock on the head?"

"Well … I'd say maybe so. Except it wasn't just …"

She seemed to be having trouble with words. He asked, "Wasn't what?"

"Wasn't just what I saw. It was what I felt."

"How's that?"

She closed her eyes and leaned against the car. The scene replayed itself through her mind, but a lot of it didn't make much sense. "I don't know. Maybe it _was_ just some kind of hallucination." She pulled a leg up so she could rest her head on one knee, but then she flinched and jerked her foot away from something. "What the hell?"

"What?"

"Something on the ground."

Cap pulled out his flash and clicked it on. "Where?"

"Right there …" She pointed, but then recoiled in disgust.

Cap said nothing for a moment, and then commented, "Guess Drifter was right. No wonder he was holding his arm."

There on the ground lay a long, sinewy, and very hairy thumb.

##

_For at least the thousandth time, the Overlord cursed whatever ill-starred Fates had linked it to this useless, puling, shell of a sub-creature. Who could foresee that such a one would have tapped into the Deep Knowledge? More to the point, how could one so lacking in mental capacity have managed the spells correctly? It should not have been possible. This was a continual sore point, and one upon which the Overlord had mulled at great length. _

_Many times over these past few cycles the thought crossed his mind: Could one of his rivals have set him up? It scarcely seemed likely; they all labored under the same strictures. They all had to adhere to the same cosmic timetables. And in any event, if one of the others had made contact first, that one would have been bound by the Geas of Duration, just as he was. But what other explanation could there be?_

_In all the long centuries of his existence, he had never encountered such a combination in a sub-creature. By all that was unholy, it should __**not**__ have been __**possible!**_

_This caused him much frustration … and things were not improving on the current feeding plane._

_The sub-creature had gotten itself injured again. This was becoming something of a habit, and an irksome one at that. It wasn't that the Overlord had any lack of healing energies. The drain on his system was insignificant; the link was strong enough, and would continue to be until the Season of Light, and perhaps even somewhat beyond. But it took time for the Overlord to effect the regeneration, and while the sub-creature was hiding somewhere waiting for his wounds to knit, he was not able to find his master any food. _

_This was bad. The Overlord was hungry. Any more, its kind existed in a state of perpetual hunger. Access to the feeding planes was an unpredictable and occasionally difficult thing, and it was only in the last several millennia that his race had realized they would have to diversify and conserve their food supply. They had, of course, scoured their own world clear of all the higher forms of life in the earliest days of their recorded history, and the internecine wars that followed had nearly seen the demise of their civilization. In the end, only a few thousand of the strongest had survived. Since then, through intrigue and deception, each had carved out for itself a selection of adjacent feeding planes. But the number of such planes that were positioned favorably for contact was strictly limited, and each Overlord was constantly vying with the rest for control of, and access to, these planes. What was worse, some of them had been through the unpleasant experience in recent centuries of having inter-planar contacts simply vanish, to wink out as if they had never been. The number of available planes was dropping. The decrease was slow, but it was there, and this fact was a maggot gnawing at the secret parts of every Overlord's mind, as hunger gnawed at the rest of them._

_The Overlord was hungry. It was always hungry … and patience had never been its shining attribute._

##


	3. Chapter 1  Discovery  Part C

_**Chapter One – Discovery – Part C**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

_** Thursday 29 December 2016, 4:30pm **_

Karl made it a regular practice to monitor the ISB's interdepartmental communications a couple of times a week. Three more of his worm programs had been neutralized over the previous month, leaving him access to only four individuals: Aurora Freefur, Marla Katt, Hemanth Rajid, and Maxwell Vasonelle. Most of the traffic consisted of standard reports whose prose tended to remind one of a sack of moldy sawdust, only less entertaining. Some of Rajid's mail, though, had concerned the big wolverine directly, and Karl found it much more interesting.

Many communications between the dapper mongoose and the Powers That Be discussed what to do with or about their rogue agent, and the bulk of it left Karl with a sour taste in his mouth. His reappearance had obviously made an impression on quite a few of the decision-makers. Theories about what he'd been up to the last five years flew thick and fast among the higher-ups, but none he'd seen to date bore any resemblance to reality in any respect. Some of them were downright amusing … or they would be if those proposing them weren't dead serious.

Rajid was also in regular contact with Capra, who was heading up the field-agents' effort to locate him (no surprise there, given the canine's reaction upon finding the van Karl had used to transport his cargo from Boston). Capra's team was still down in Massachusetts, and they had no real leads on him yet, although there was some mention of something called a 'Hack Cell' that he was going to have to look into. It wouldn't do for some geek-savant computer whiz to go snooping about into his cyber-trails, no matter how well he'd concealed them. If they got close, he'd have to bug out, unresolved relationships or not.

However, their system had gone down for maintenance late yesterday afternoon, and had only come back up about three hours ago. So far there wasn't much traffic, nor was there much point in staying here watching nothing happen. He set the various worms to their tasks and went downstairs to make himself a few sandwiches.

##

_** Tuesday 03 January 2017, 10:20am **_

To facilitate using the conference holography unit, the room was darkened, the only ambient light coming from four small, indirect sconces on the walls. Normally such a conference would have taken place via the ISB's secure intranet, but that was no longer feasible. This room, and the computer system in it, was completely isolated from the rest of the network. All of those in attendance had been summoned via paw-written paper messages. All of them were intensely interested in the information to be presented, and none had wasted any time in getting there.

The image hovering in the air above the table was a fully-dimensioned replica of an old five-story office building on Blodgett Street in Burlington, Vermont. To one side a smaller image hung, turning slowly so that all those attending could see it.

A fur in regulation DoD blues came in the door at the far end of the long room and hurried over to where Rajid sat toward the middle of the table. He placed a thin folder in front of the mongoose and scurried back out. Rajid took out the document in the folder, scanned it briefly, and held it in his paw. He wasted no time on pleasantries.

"This, gentlefurs, is a telling example of what we are up against. Gulo did not depend on using the commercial system for his comlink. He ran his own hardline." The mongoose tapped a couple of keys and a bright dot appeared in the small image. "Here is the ground floor, where the server is kept. Here," the dot moved down and illuminated the bottom section of the image, "is the basement. It is a typical setup. Furnace, utility hookups, et cetera. According to the building's records, the wall behind the furnace was repaired in 1995. It's the only wall in the room not made of antique brick or limestone. How he managed it we do not know yet, but he ran the hardline up inside that wall, through the floor under the server, and into its frame. Had we not _known_ it was there, we wouldn't have found it. It was that well-hidden. The other end goes down into the sewer system and comes out in the University of Vermont's computer lab, where it hooks up to their satellite network, nicely piggybacked on one of the University's own frequencies."

One of the attendees, a General with the Marines, let out a low whistle. "I coulda used _that_ sonuvabitch in Ghana couple years back."

"Indeed. His skills in certain areas are without parallel."

"And that," put in an officer at the end of the table, "is why he _**must**_ be contained. If he fell in with the wrong crowd, got persuaded to join some wacko outfit …"

"Please, Colonel, I understand your concerns. But whatever his other faults may be, he was never one to condone terrorism. He spent several years in the single-minded – and, might I add, highly successful – dismantling and elimination of just such an organization as you mention. The danger he poses is more of an individual threat."

"Meaning he's likely to snuff anyfur who finds out who he is."

"That course of action would be consistent with his history with Omicron Platoon and during his campaign against the Cartel. We do not know whether it is currently valid."

That statement brought hoots of derision from two of the officers. In a stony silence Rajid allowed them to settle down and then asked, "May I continue with the briefing?"

There were several nods. He resumed, "The University has its own communications satellite, launched just last year. It is a state-of-the-art geosynchronous model, and they have several novel uses for it. But it can carry something like two orders of magnitude as much traffic as they need, so they lease some of the extra space. Gulo is using one of the vacant bands for his communications. He had the system fooled into believing that the usage was legitimate, and we have left it that way. We do not, under any circumstances, want to do anything that might alert him to our presence."

He entered a few commands on his keyboard. The office building winked out, to be replaced by a section of computer code. "And that brings us to our second point, and the reason you were all notified of this meeting the old-fashioned way. Gulo has infiltrated the ISB intranet." There were two or three low gasps from the few members present who didn't already know that. "We are not sure how many spy programs he has active. We have discovered two. This is the one that is currently infecting my filespace."

"_**Currently**_ infecting? You just _left_ it there?"

"I believe I mentioned that we wanted our surveillance to remain outside his notice, did I not?"

"Ah. Right."

"Thank you. The other infection we know about is on Marla Katt's network. She has been involved with some projects of an extremely delicate nature … a system that may be the next generation of particle beam weapon, in a paw-held model. There is every possibility that Gulo has accessed that information. He accomplished this by disguising the carrier program as a virus scanner, and imbedding the worm in a hidden subroutine. Very sophisticated, and essentially undetectable."

The Marine General asked, "If it's so undetectable, how'd _you_ detect it?"

"Much as I hate to admit this, it was largely an accident."

"Just like war, then. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good."

"Yes, well, while I prefer not to rely on serendipity I _will_ accept it gratefully when it happens. We had a general hardware upgrade a few months ago, and Marla's system had compatibility issues. There was excess power bleed from one of her projects, and it caused unusual problems with her net. We had to do a wipe-and-bulk-reload of her system, and we were using a new comparison program that checks the origin and history of each piece of code on the drive. It found a slight discrepancy, and the technician in charge was curious enough to tackle the source code instead of simply deleting the anomaly. What he found confused him, and then when he figured out what it was there for, it frightened him badly. He brought it to my attention, so I had him do a similar diagnostic on my system."

"And you don't have any idea how many more of your sectors may be compromised?"

"Not at this time. We have checked six more systems and found no other worms. But we have well over two hundred to go."

"So in the meantime your system is hamstrung."

"Not at all. In fact, we are using it as a screen. Since we know we are being monitored, we are giving Gulo what he wants: information. It just isn't entirely accurate."

The Secretary of Defense spoke up for the first time. "Hemanth, I'd like the bottom line. How close are you to nailing him?"

"We have determined the extents of his current area of operations. We are setting up monitoring stations at the perimeter of the area, and will track the frequency he is using for his uplink. Unless he has some psychic ability we don't know about, or he becomes alarmed about something else and bolts, we should have his position determined within the next two weeks. And for the time being," and here he looked around at everyone at the table, "There will be no buzz whatsoever concerning what has been discussed here. As far as anyone here is concerned, this meeting never took place." He gathered his papers and stood. "Gentlefurs, I will keep you updated as events unfold."

**Here Ends Chapter One**


	4. Chapter 2 Isolation Part A

_**Chapter Two – Isolation – Part A**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

_##_

**Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, **

**Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, **

**Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air **

**Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, **

**And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.**

_**-Ralph Waldo Emerson**_

##

_** Saturday 31 December 2016,11:30am **_

Standing at the edge of the porch, Wendy wagged her head in disbelief. "Would you just _look_ at all this white crap?"

Karl glanced over at her. "Hard not to. It tends to dominate the view."

"This is just _too_ ridiculous."

"I'll admit it's a bit unusual. Of course, I've only lived in this area for six years, so it isn't as if I have a lot of experience with the local weather."

She cocked her head up at him, giving him 'the eye'. "Oh, don't play dumb."

He returned her gaze. "What's that crack supposed to mean?"

"Tell me something, Karl. What was the average snowfall in this area over the first decade of the century?"

"What?"

"Not annual. Just for, oh, let's say for the month of December."

"Wendy, how would I know a statistic like …"

"But you do, don't you?"

"Why would you even …"

"See, now, here's the thing." She poked him in the belly with one mittened finger. "I've got you figured out, at least where questions are concerned. You'll couch your answer in phrasing that _sounds_ like an answer when it's really an evasion."

"I protest!"

"Protest all you want. I know that's how you do it. You're a past master at giving technically true but not precisely complete responses. What you might call non-answer answers." She crossed her arms over her chest. "So. How much snow usually falls around here in December?"

He stared at her determined face for a few seconds, and then shrugged. "Around forty-five centimeters." He used one foot to brush some snow off the edge of the porch, musing silently that if this rate of fall kept up for long, that would shortly be impossible. "It'll vary seven or eight either way."

She grinned in triumph. "Right! I knew you would have checked out that sort of thing. And I knew you'd remember it."

"Did you, now?"

"Of course. I don't believe you ever forget anything."

"Don't you think you're giving me a little too much credit?"

"Uh-uh. Not by half." She gazed silently through the thickly falling snow while the moments stretched out. They could clearly hear each fat flake as it hit with a tiny _piff_.

"It is pretty, though," he offered.

"It would be _pretty_ on a _postcard_. I'd happily contemplate this scene while sipping a Maitai, lounging in an Adirondack chair on the beach."

He suppressed a deep chuckle.

"And we had, what, something like three meters of the stuff last month?"

"No. Only two point one."

"That, my good sir, is a sad misapplication of the word 'only'. Two meters-plus is a little extreme, wouldn't you say? Four or five _times_ the snow in a normal year? Especially on top of the half-meter or so we got in November. And _that_ was on top of a good base of ice from that damned winter storm we had right after Halloween."

He observed, "The ski resorts in the Catskills are lovin' it."

"If I'd wanted drifts twice my height I'd have moved to Vail or Jackson Hole. This is just stupid."

"Enh, it's not like they've never seen weather like this before. The '93 Super Storm dumped a meter and a quarter on parts of Vermont in less than a day."

"And that's why they _called_ it a Super Storm!"

"Well …"

"What are they calling this? The Winter That Didn't Know When to Quit?"

He had to chuckle at that.

She huffed in disgust and turned toward the door. "Let's go back inside. Bloody cold out here."

"What, this? This is just a typical bracing morning in – _oof!"_ He rubbed his lower back. "Hey, watch the kidneys."

"You start waxing poetic about winter weather and I'll slip a Mickey into your cocoa and shave you while you're conked out." She shook her paw a few times and squeezed her wrist gingerly. "Damn, your back's hard!"

"It's a good thing, too, if my so-called friends are going to be beating up on me."

"Well I tried being nice to you and you didn't seem to like it." She opened the door. "You coming? I was serious about the cocoa, but I'll leave the knock-out juice in the pantry."

"Oh, I'm there. No worries."

##

**Lying is done wi****th words, and also with silence.**

_**-Adrienne Rich**_

##

Giving in to Wendy's heartfelt request, Karl hung around until the middle of the following Tuesday. The power grid went down – again – in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and he spent most of Monday checking out the various systems in the old house. He gave Wendy the custom PA he'd put together for her, told her that she could call whomever she wished, and not to worry about minutes. He ran her through the list of speed-dials and special functions, and set up the charger in the Folly where the solar panel could get a good bit of light each day.

"You really don't have to do this, you know," she protested. "My PA situation is just temporary. Just until things pick up again in the spring."

"I know. But it makes me uneasy, you being all the way out here so far from any neighbors, and without communication. This is at _least_ as much to set _my_ mind at ease as it is a convenience for you."

"Well … whatever your reasons happen to be, I do appreciate it." She gave a small giggle and said, "When I get a rip-roaring case of cabin fever I can start calling all my old pals back in Pennsylvania just for kicks. Run your bill way up."

"If that's what floats your boat. There's no limit on connection time."

She grew a bit pensive at that. "Karl?"

"Yes?"

"Do you _really_ not know when you'll be getting back?"

"It depends on what I find once I get there. If the trail leads elsewhere, I could be gone quite a while. Couple weeks, maybe."

She didn't say anything for a bit, then asked, "Why can't I come, too?" She took one of his paws in hers and added, "I can be a big help! Really!"

He sighed and said, "Wendy, we've been over that. If Yates is as crooked as he seems to be, he will doubtless have some muscle on paw to back him up." He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "The _last_ thing we need is for you to get caught in a firefight."

"I made it through the last one okay."

"Yeesh! Don't remind me!"

"No, really! Think about it. I was one of the few who didn't get hurt at all."

"Which says to me that you've used up your allotment of luck for the nonce."

"I thought you told me you didn't believe in luck."

"I don't. But you do."

"Still, I mean …"

"No. Wendy, I will not be party to any venture that puts you in harm's way, no matter how obliquely. I'll be traveling light and very quickly, my plans may have to change with no prior warning, and if we got separated …"

"I know, I know. I don't speak German."

"Or Polish."

"Or Polish. Right."

"Things are very volatile in that part of the world right now. It's best if you stay here. It's also best if Yates has no clue that you've anything to do with his being traced."

"I still don't see how he could possibly find that out from the other side of the planet."

"Assuming he possessed a sufficient supply of gray matter, somebody with access to the amount of money it looks like he took could find out whatever he wanted to know, no matter where he was."

She narrowed her eyes a fraction. "That has the ring of personal experience."

"Let's just say," he commented, studying her face briefly while formulating his answer, "that I've seen what can be accomplished when someone says that money is no object … and _really_ means it."

A snort escaped her. "There's that pesky ol' shady past rearing its head."

"Eh. I don't know that I'd call it shady. A few parts here and there might be … well … I'd say it's not for public consumption."

"So you still aren't going to tell me anything about it, are you?"

"It's personal. Not stuff you need to know."

"There you go with the misdirection again."

"It isn't misdirection. I'm being purposefully vague." He wagged a finger at her. "And you should remember that forbearance is a virtue."

She blew him a raspberry. "It's a good thing for you," she added, snaking an arm over and poking him again, "that I'm not a cat."

"Good thing for you, you mean. At least you won't die of curiosity."

"Ha ha. That's hardly my biggest fear."

"Oh? And what is?"

"Eh. I dunno. Maybe … maybe something along the lines of …" She lifted one arm in a dramatic pose, the back of her other paw against her forehead. "'N is for Neville, who died of ennui.'"

"Nah. Neville was a bore. Everyone thought so. They were just too kind to say it." He grinned a little. "Unlike you, he was more likely to kill _with_ than be killed _by_ ennui."

"Well, thanks, I guess. So rather than die, I'll just hang around here and go not-so-slowly nuts from boredom."

"I'll call you when I can." He took a step toward her. "You know, to keep you current on how it's going."

She turned to face him, placed her paws on his upper arms, pulled herself up on tip-toe and him down closer, and gave him a light kiss on the side of his muzzle. Karl noted that she didn't release him after the kiss, and gently put his arms around her. "You'll be fine. Really. Being bored is better than being shipped back in a body-bag."

"I suppose." She looked up at him, repositioned her grip, and gave him a quick, tight hug. "But not by much." Then she let go, turned away, and strode rapidly down the South Hall, rubbing at her eyes with the back of a knuckle.

Karl watched her walk away and then slowly lifted an arm to his face. He breathed in deeply of where her scent lingered on the fur of his wrist, vented a long sigh, and left.

##

_** __Wednesday 04 January 2017, 7:00pm **_

There is a branch of statistics that deals with the behavior of very large groups. In such a group, while the behavior of an individual is not readily predictable, the behaviors and outcomes of the entire group, or known demographics within the group, can be calculated to accuracies in the range of hundredths of a percentile point.

Look, as an example, at the megalopolis that stretches from southern New Jersey up the coast to well north of Long Island. Although it is not possible to say that one single fur in that vast metropolitan spread will or will not make it to work on a given day, we may rest assured that the sector of industry he or she represents will run on without a hiccup. When a community gets to the size and complexity of a place like New York City, it begins to lose its identity as 'simply' a city and starts to behave more like an organism. Essential services begin to perform less like separate companies and more like the city's bloodstream. This applies across the board, to every facet of society in the city. So, while no one in the police department could have said whether or not a particular bar in any of the several hundred seedier areas of town was hosting a meeting of criminal minds, any officer on the force would state with utter confidence that such a meeting _was_ indeed taking place … somewhere.

A scruffy wolf, wrapped to the eyes against the blowing cold and favoring a leg that seemed not to be altogether in good working order, pushed in through the entrance to one such establishment. He shouldered his way through the crowd to the narrow and cigarette-burn-covered bar, and leaned over, catching the eye of the pygmy shrew behind it. The shrew put down the glass he'd been polishing and took the three steps in the wolf's direction.

"Whet eess playshurr?"

"Bourbon, neat, and a pitcher of dark ale with a twist of lime, to go."

The shrew digested that; then his brows drew down. "Whet eess pay?"

The wolf reached under his coat and drew out an oddly-marked silver coin which he passed to the shrew, who examined it briefly, gave a short nod and led the wolf back into the rear of the building. He pointed to a door at the end of a short hall and hurried away. The wolf went over to it and laid a paw on the knob.

_**[ This bar's proprietor happened to be of Pakistani origin, and he'd not been in North America very long. This, Gentle Reader, should come as no surprise. That the industrious furs of that storied and troubled country had come to the Land of Opportunity in great numbers to set up shop in the service sector was as tired a cliché as any you could name. But there's a grain of truth in most such situations, and it wouldn't have become a cliché in the first place unless a great many people had observed the same set of circumstances. In any case, the bar's real owner, who never actually made an appearance at the physical address, hailed from Great Britain … Northern Ireland, to be precise. And the one who owned **__**him**__** called Egypt home. And **__**that**__** fur owed a certain Libyan a favor. Let us then enter, and see how our desert fox has been these last few months. ]**_

The tawny fennec looked up and squinted at the door as the last of his cronies arrived. Hiding his limp well, the lean, scarred wolf closed the door and propped himself against it. The room wasn't, after all, very large.

The fennec said, "Wykov."

Wykov responded, "Hamad."

That worthy spent several seconds glancing around the room at the other half-dozen furs. When he knew that each was giving him his full attention he said, "Wykov will be taking over as manager of this cell."

Two of them frowned and one spoke. "Where is Procyanu?"

"Dead."

The two started at that news. "When?"

"Three days ago. In Amsterdam. Interpol."

"Shit."

"Yes. So Wykov will coordinate our search."

Ah. The meat of the issue. As one they sat forward, their deceased compatriot forgotten.

Hamad pulled out a map of New England and spread it over the table. "Our best estimates place him somewhere between Saranac Lake, New York and Concord, New Hampshire, probably in Vermont, and probably not far from Montpelier. He has been sighted four times now passing through Burlington, but has managed to give our trackers the slip each time." His voice fairly dripped bitterness. Three days earlier he had received a note from Madame Schmedtte. It had been short and pointed, much like the objects she planned to insert into his body if he didn't produce Gamma in a timely manner. "That devil has somehow managed to prevent his image from being recorded in the public databases we can access, so we will have to do this the hard way." He paused and looked at each of his lieutenants. "We must finish this. If you find yourself in a situation where torture is needed to get the information we want, make sure you leave no witnesses … and no bodies. Wykov has set up three safe houses in the area we'll be canvassing, and if possible you should take them there for questioning. Then you won't have any clean-up issues."

One of them asked, "How many do we have who can search?"

"Seventeen. I've got government papers for thirteen, with eight FBI ident cards and five Homeland Security Inspector badges. That should make it much easier for you to get the information we want without a great deal of trouble. The other four will work from within the local criminal communities."

"When do we start?" one of them wanted to know.

Wykov cleared his throat and said, "Tonight."

##

_** __Friday 06 January 2017,8:00am **_

Pulling aside the curtain at the kitchen door showed Debbye the faces of the two DoD guards who had come to escort her husband to his plane. She sighed, let it fall back into place, and opened the door. "Come in, gentlemen."

One of them said, "Good morning, Ms. Evans." They stepped into the kitchen. "We don't mean to intrude."

"I know. He's ready. He'll be right down."

The other one offered, "SecDef has everything arranged. We're escorting him directly to the airfield."

"Yes, he said you might. Would either of you like some coffee?"

"No thank you, Ma'am. We're supplied."

"Okay, then. I'll let him know you're waiting for him."

They took the hint. One of them said, "Very good." They both touched their caps and went back to the car.

She turned when she heard Lee pad into the kitchen, and came over to stand in front of him. "You see the escort?"

"Yep. Three in the convoy. Heard 'em pull up. Really, though, it's no less than I'd expect from Joe."

"Hmm." She took one of his paws in hers. "You've got your PA?"

"Right here." He patted his hip and grinned at his wife. "You can call me any evening. Just don't try to get in touch while we're in the air."

Debbye gave him a hug and then straightened his tie. "Knock 'em dead, Hon."

"Umm … maybe not 'dead'," he commented, his grin widening. "The idea is to prove the craft is _safe_, not _lethal_."

"Ha. Very ha. I know what a Readiness Review is like, dear. You've been through enough of them before."

"Yes. And the Review Team's just doing its job. They have to put the design through its paces, to see to it that it'll stand up under what it has to do."

"You ask me, it sounds more like their job is to see to it that _your_ team falls on its collective face."

"That only happened the one time. And it _was_ our fault. We should have ignored all the time-pressure posturing the brass pulled and checked out the integration model more thoroughly before. …"

She put a finger over his muzzle and gave a non-committal grunt. "Whatever. Just be careful."

"Okay. I'll try to limit the number of life-threatening paper cuts."

"You do that." She rubbed one paw up his arm. "I'm not finished with you yet."

"I hope not." He kissed the tip of her nose, then gave her a deeper one, full of meaning and promise. That kiss was returned, with change.

Eventually, though, she broke the clutch. "Off with you, boy, before I get all teary and mushy and stuff."

"I'll see you in two weeks."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

##

**The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa  
****which freezes a billion people to stone every night,  
****staring fixedly,  
****that Siren which called and sang and promised so much  
****and gave, after all, so little.**

_**-Ray Bradbury**_

##

_** Saturday 07 January 2017, 8:00pm **_

"Got any of thet cidah left?"

"Tha hard stuff ain't good for ya tickeh, Tom. Heard Doc Sammel say so."

"Doc Sammel can keep his opinions t' hisself."

"Be that as it may, I got t' look out f'r my friends. Got some eggnog. How's that strike ya?"

"Strikes me funny."

"Why for ya say so?"

"Ya worried aboot my tickeh, and ya try t' pawn off a heart attack in a glass on me. 'sides, ya know I don't like eggnog."

Quinn gave up. "Cidah's over behind tha stove."

The elderly cat levered himself out of the rocking chair and retrieved the jug. He poured a cup for himself and another for his raccoon friend before taking his seat again. "Generateh workin' out for ya?"

"Lights on, ain't they?"

Tom grunted in response and took a swig of cider. "Ya got that box on tha right channel?"

"As if an addle-pated old faht like you could tell tha difference."

"I reckon I know tha old Vulpin place when I see it. More'n I can say for you. When's tha last time you been out thet way?"

"Hadn't been so long I can't remembeh tha front door from tha back." He made a shushing motion with a paw. "Put a stoppeh in it. Tha program's 'boot ta start." He pointed at the screen where the Cheetah-Paw Tire logo was prominently displayed. Their spokesfur, Cheetaur, came on then to introduce the _'Winter in New England'_ special.

The next two hours were filled with a variety of excellent skits, songs, anecdotes, and vignettes, all performed against the breathtaking backdrop of Ash Creek Inn. The film crew had done a miraculous job of presenting the venerable estate's best features, and the scenery shots were as good as any they'd ever seen. The Cheetah-Paw Tire commercials were low-key, tasteful, and infrequent, and nothing else interrupted the flow of the show. Many times did the two nonagenarians chuckle and wheeze, and more than once one of them had to wipe away a tell-tale tear.

Toward the end of the show, Quinn asked, "Didn't Wendy say they interviewed her 'boot tha place?"

"Eh. I can't say. Don't remembeh if she did or no."

"Well, I'm pretty sure she did. Haven't seen it yet."

"Maybe it'll be in tha credits?"

"Maybe."

But it wasn't. At no time did Wendy appear on-screen. Quinn was indignant. "All thet fancy talk they give her aboot publicity, an' then they don't even have tha courtesy t' let her say a word!"

Tom agreed. "Don't hardly seem right." He tapped his friend on the arm. "Lookee! There's thet Cheetaur. Wendy did say she was nice."

The spokesfur thanked the audience for 'joining the Cheetah-Paw Tire Company in our celebration of _Winter in New England_' and directed interested viewers to a website for more information on the bed-and-breakfast that had served as a backdrop for the show. The website's address appeared in a box at the bottom of the screen, but neither of the old furs recognized it. The big taur's image faded out to be replaced by a distance shot of Ash Creek Inn. This message faded in over the scene, accompanied by word-for-word narration:

**For more information about this lovely old mansion,  
o****r if you wish to make reservations, write to:**

**W. Wilder  
****Maple Fork Inn  
****1410 Stryker Road  
****Topsham, VT 05076**

**Or call 802-802-5028**

Quinn jerked forward in his seat. "Maple Fork? What is this?"

"They done made a mistake, Quinn. She called tha place Ash Crick Inn, on account o' tha crick on tha proppity."

"And we ain't in Topsham, neitheh!" He rocked back and crossed his arms, fuming. "Tain't right. They done her wrong, Tom. Tain't right."

"Wondah how they screwed up so bad?"

"Topsham!" The word was nearly a curse. "I reckon anyplace in Vermont'd be as good as any otheh ta them. Blasted TV furs. Cain't find they heads with both paws and a map." He shook his head a couple of times. "I do hope ta Heaven Wendy didn't see thet."

"I'd think," said Tom with a wry expression, "we woulda heard tha explosion from heah if she did."

Quinn grumbled something in return that Tom couldn't make out. The old Raccoon was ill company for the next few days.

##


	5. Chapter 2 Isolation Part B

_**Chapter Two – Isolation – Part B**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

_** Monday 09 January 2017,1:40am **_

Berlin was a hopping place these days. Seven months had passed since a vote of no-confidence ousted the previous administration. The shaky coalition government that tried to take its place had dissolved into feuds and territorial posturing almost immediately, and the resulting power vacuum led to riots on a weekly, and recently almost daily, basis. The city police, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disturbance, went on strike, and the military had stepped in to 'restore order'. They began said restoration by declaring martial law, arresting more furs than they had prison space to hold them, and shooting dead some forty rioters in the first week. This had led not to any sort of 'peace', but to even more strident protests. The burning and looting left decent-sized sections of the city in ruins, and reminded some of the oldest residents of the Allied bombing raids of World War II. It was a perfect atmosphere for organized crime, and several such groups had quickly set up shop. Suddenly drugs and pawguns (which had been banned entirely under the old government) were available to anyone who wanted them. Some neighborhoods had devolved into free-fire zones. Most residents had a siege mentality about the whole thing, and no one went anywhere alone any more.

On the one paw, the war footing everyone seemed to have adopted made Karl's attempts at fact-finding unusually difficult. On the other … well, no one questioned him about what he was up to.

He'd found a reasonably secure apartment on the south edge of the city and set up his remote base there. When he was through with his 'improvements', it was a heck of a lot _**more**_ secure than the owners could have imagined. Before leaving Vermont he had tracked Yates to one of the large hotels in downtown Berlin, but it had fallen victim to a gang war while Karl was en route to Germany. Nofur stayed there now, nor was anyone likely to any time soon, and Yates seemed to have dropped off the planet. He'd left very few material clues, and, until the previous afternoon, Karl hadn't been able to dredge up much additional information from the ex-hotel workers. That was when he'd finally located the old badger who'd been the head concierge. He'd been _very_ helpful.

It seemed Yates had done little to ingratiate himself with the staff. He tipped poorly when he remembered to tip at all, he invariably left his room a complete mess, and he bothered the staff incessantly with requests for special foods, limousines, phone numbers, and …

"Phone numbers? For what or who?"

The elderly fur took another sip of the excellent wine Karl had brought him and considered the question. "Banks. And bankers. Investment bankers, if my recollection is true. Travel agencies. Oh, and private investigators on at least two occasions." He frowned in thought, then gave a slight nod. "Those are all the ones I know about personally."

"I see. You wouldn't happen to remember the names of the private investigators, would you?"

The badger stared at the ceiling for several long moments and then said, "Weisspelz. Ja. Adolf Weisspelz. I remembered his name because he stayed with us a couple of times." He frowned in concentration and then uttered a small sound of frustration. "I am sorry Herr Markel, but the other name escapes me. This old head," and here he tapped his temple, "isn't what it used to be I am afraid."

"That's all right. Can you tell me what he looks like?"

"He is a white mink. Short fur, average height, perhaps a little heavy-set. He has a scar on the left side of his face."

"I assume it's reasonably noticeable, or you wouldn't have mentioned it."

"Yes. It goes from his temple to under his muzzle. I don't know how he got it."

"I see. Do you have any idea where I might find Herr Weisspelz?"

"I do not. I was able to look up his number in the hotel's records, but now …" A sad shake of his head indicated the futility of that tack.

"Yes, I understand. I've been by and seen what's left of it."

"So very sad. It was built in 1773, you know. To survive so many wars, and then to be destroyed, and by our own people no less … it is so … so …"

"A travesty, I agree."

"Ah, well. What's done is done. I had enough to retire on, though as you can see it is not lavish."

"You've done well for yourself. Many of this city's furs have lost everything, including their lives in some cases."

"Ja, that is true, that is true." He gazed at Karl and asked, "So will you be going to see Herr Weisspelz?"

"At my earliest opportunity. I must locate Herr Yates."

"I wish you luck with that, especially if you mean him ill."

"Sir! You shock me."

He shrugged. "The word 'schadenfreude' is not our own for nothing."

Karl had to laugh at that. "Then I will see what I may do so that I do not disappoint you."

All of which led to his being where he was now, moving quickly but silently along the roof of this office building. His objective was in the building across the narrow street that led away from the wide boulevard fronting both buildings. He paused at the edge, Augmented his vision, and scanned the windows on the seventh floor.

Herr Weisspelz had not, initially, been inclined to help; however, a liberal application of gold to his palm changed that tune to one more to Karl's liking. Yes, he had done some legwork for Yates. No, he didn't know where he'd gone. He hadn't trusted the fur, and demanded his fee up front. Yates wanted him to arrange a meeting with the head of one of the crime syndicates that now acted as the de facto government. That hadn't surprised Karl. His research had already turned up Yates' interest in the Polish mafia.

He'd learned soon after locating the building in question that simply waltzing in and asking after his target was out of the question. The mob owned and operated it, lock, stock, and crumbling façade, and they had a history of answering all such curiosity with high-velocity lead. Guards patrolled all the halls, and the first two floors were protected from entry by some fairly sophisticated monitoring systems. Karl quickly decided that the situation called for "high-level" covert insertion.

He pulled a flat, rectangular object from one of his pockets and aimed it carefully at the last window. This portable deepscan unit didn't have anything like the range or resolution of the larger system he'd used when he was tracking Martin's kidnappers, but he figured he didn't need that level of detail for this exercise. He could only penetrate through the outer layer of rooms, and some into the hallway beyond, but what he learned satisfied him: one guard nodding on a chair leaning against an end wall in the corridor, and one fur stretched out on a cot in the room at the rear of the building. Karl smiled grimly and replaced the scanner in its pouch. Then he moved along the edge of the roof until he was opposite the windows of the fourth and central room. He took a second to accurately judge the distance, then leapt.

The legerity with which he landed on the ledge below the frame belied his nearly hundred and eighty kilos of mass. With one paw he lightly gripped the bars that latticed the window; with the other he extracted a compact device which he placed against one of the bars near its socket. It sizzled quietly and gave off an acrid tang. In a few seconds the bar came loose from the wall. Karl repeated the process five more times, and then bent the rest of the lattice away from the window far enough to admit him. The moon tonight was a waxing gibbous, but had anyfur been in the alley and bothered to look up at the seventh floor, the dense overcast would have prevented his noticing anything. Karl didn't worry about it. Nor was video surveillance a worry. Either the mob bosses never thought anyone would get this far, or they hadn't had time to set up anything, but in either case there was nothing in the room that might serve to record his presence.

Before him stood several workstations in a rough U-shape, each linked to a central desk-sized server that stood against the far wall. Karl didn't bother trying to gain access to the system. That hadn't been his plan at all. He went straight to the server and began removing the housing.

He had figured it could take upwards of half an hour to liberate the drives, but with no locks or alarms on the unit to slow him down, he was making much better progress than that. He was, in fact, nearly finished when he heard someone stop outside the door. Working with furious haste, he hooked the covers back on and scraped all the evidence of his intrusion around to the rear of the server, in a corner by the wall. Then he sped over to the workstation farthest from the door and hunkered behind the desk. Drawing both his knives, he watched and waited.

It only took a few more seconds for Karl to realize that something wasn't quite kosher. If a guard came by just checking that the doors were locked, he would have simply jiggled the knob and moved on. If it were one of the furs that worked here, he'd have a key or a passbadge and would have come on in. This fur was fiddling with the knob … as if picking the lock.

_Très intéressant_, he thought. He moved out and slipped along the floor to a position behind the door. Whoever this was, he must have disabled the guard. To have done that so quietly and efficiently that Karl had heard nothing spoke volumes of his level of expertise. The lock's last tumbler clicked and the door eased open. A tall figure glided in and turned to close it. Instantly he stiffened in the realization that he was not alone. His head jerked to his right.

In the scant few milliseconds before the figure reacted, Karl noted that his outfit was both hooded and form-fitting. A utility belt hugged his waist, and a pair of short, curved swords clung to his back in their sheaths. The fur immediately freed both of them and Karl suddenly found himself on the defensive … and barely holding his own! The other's speed and skill was frankly astonishing. Obviously a master of his craft, he easily parried each of Karl's attempts to disarm him. In the next eight seconds they fought twice across the room and half-way around its perimeter. Then something about the interloper's fighting style clicked, and the light dawned in the big wolverine's head.

He quickly disengaged and leaped far back out of the way, placing two desks between him and the other. As his opponent jumped up on the nearest desk and came at him, Karl said, "Richard?"

The figure froze, but didn't lower his guard. After a slow count of five, he said, "Gamma?"

Karl replaced one blade in its sheath and used the other, point down on the desk, to rest his left paw on. "Small world."

"I think I know you well enough to be confident you'd never _work_ with these scum. What, may I ask, are you doing here?"

"An interesting question, coming from a fur who just lock-picked his way into the office."

Eyeing the open window, he responded, "You're one to talk."

"Heh! You got me there." He nodded at Richard Grau's blades. "Do I need to be worried about those any more?"

"Ah." He glanced at his weapons. "No." They disappeared into their cases.

Karl copied the action and said, "I'm here on behalf of a friend. This gang runs a money-laundering front that a lot of shady characters deal with."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. That's why _**I'm**_ here."

"I see. Well, one such shady character relieved my friend – and quite a few others – of a sizeable chunk of change. Something on the order of two hundred thousand U.S. dollars in that case alone. I traced him here to Berlin, and found a solid connection with this gang, but I needed more info. So I decided to poke through their records and see what I could find."

"Hmm. As you say, it's a small world. I'm on a similar task. Only my current employer is out a cool ten million. He'd very much like to get it back."

"I'll just bet." Pausing for a few seconds of thought, Karl said, "Okay, I can have that server over there portable in a couple more minutes. How about you follow me out and we can unravel the money trail at our leisure elsewhere?"

"Works for me. I wasn't relishing the thought of lugging that thing back out the way I came in." He went over to the window and frowned. "Where's your rope?"

"Didn't use one."

"Ah. Okay." He studied the opposite roof briefly and nodded to himself. "That shouldn't be a problem, as long as you do the heavy lifting."

"That was my plan."

"Cool."

Before they took their leave, Karl set off a small fumigation device that would eliminate all traces of fingerprints or odor and dissolve any stray hairs or dander that either of them might have left in the room. He'd also taken a few minutes to drill a small hole in the top of the doorframe and drop a tiny listening device into it. When the building's owners discovered their loss in a few hours, he wanted to know what they thought of the situation.

When they got back to street level, Karl asked, "You have a secure base?"

"It'll do. How's yours?"

"Proof against surveillance …of_** any**_ sort."

Richard realized what it meant when Karl stressed that word. "Ah. We'll use yours then."

They spoke no more until they were safe in Karl's rooms. Then Richard inquired, "You said you were doing this for a friend?"

"Yes."

"No pay involved?"

"Unh-uh."

"This is all free and gratis?"

"Uh-huh."

The greyhound studied him for a moment. "You flew across the Atlantic, assumed a reasonable risk of bodily harm, and broke several local laws … on your own time?"

Karl's features were the very essence of neutrality. " … Yes."

"Must be a really good friend."

"Yes."

Richard noted the dearth of further explanation on the wolverine's part and let it drop. "Well, I'm looking to collect an even million. I get to keep ten percent of what I recover. It's a fairly standard arrangement these days."

"So you're branching out? You used to stick strictly to personnel recovery."

"And as you pointed out when last we met, that helped to enable you to identify me."

"Right. Good point." He turned his attention to the drive. "Just let me get this thing hooked up to my box and we'll dust its little brain. Do you have the account numbers for where you want the money transferred?"

"Umm."

Karl looked up at him. "What?"

Richard considered the wolverine closely for a few moments and shrugged. "I suppose there's no reason I shouldn't trust you. If you wanted a hundred million dollars, I'm sure you could come up with easier ways to make it than this."

"Several times. I've actually done rather well in commodities. You could say that personal finances aren't a worry."

Richard snorted a short laugh. "I am so sure." He cocked his head and studied Karl. "And yet here you are."

"Here I am, where?"

"Here. In Europe. Tracking down a paltry few hundred thousand for a … I believe we agreed it was, 'A really good friend.' Was that right?"

"… Yes."

"Whatever for?"

"I don't follow you."

"Why don't you just _give_ this 'friend' the money? You've apparently got the wherewithal to do that."

"… I have my reasons."

"This 'friend' doesn't know anything about your line of work, does she?"

"She? And just what, precisely, makes you assume my friend is a femme?"

Richard didn't say anything, but the nascent smile on his muzzle crept upward a bit.

Karl made a small, grumbly noise and stared at the monitor. "Okay, fine, she's a femme. Happy now?"

"I was happy before. I just wonder about you."

"What about me?"

"Just this." He leaned over, locking gazes with the larger fur. "I think it isn't about _her_ at all."

"What? What isn't about her? It's _her_ money that went missing!"

"Yeah. I know. But I think you miss the chase."

"Do you, now?"

"Absolutely. You've been off the radar for years. To me that means you've been out of action to a large extent. I think the peaceful life is wearing thin. I know it did for me. I think that was part of why you came to me for a refresher in _rapier main gauche_. You were getting ready to get back into the game. You miss the adrenaline rush. You miss using your gifts. You miss nailing the bad guys."

It was Karl's turn for a short span of silence.

"You needn't confirm or deny any of my assumptions. It's no skin off my snout. And, as you are undoubtedly thinking, it's none of my business, and that is quite true. But I just think it's safer for a fur, any fur, if he understands and recognizes his own motivations for his actions. That way, he won't be surprised and distracted if it comes to him in an epiphany at some crucial point." He shrugged again. "Just from one old spy to another. It'd be a shame for you to get killed for no good reason."

"It'd be a shame for me to get killed, period."

Richard laughed at that and then started rattling off numbers.

The two furs spent the next half hour going through the records on the drive. Richard availed himself of the generous bounty of food Karl had stocked, remarking on both the quality and quantity.

The wolverine shrugged it off. "You've done enough traveling yourself to know the ins and outs of arranging this sort of spread. If I've got to be away from home, I may as well enjoy it." He frowned at the numbers on the screen. "Have a look at this."

Richard came over and read down the file. "Yep. That looks like what I wanted. Let's see … transfer … fee for services, et cetera … transfer … phony purchases … where the devil did they put it … okay … Camelot Holdings? Based out of Antwerp. Heh. So they deal in 'Novelties', do they? Yeah, I imagine Interpol would find their business quite novel indeed."

Karl's eyebrows rose. He pointed at a name. "This the guy who took it?"

"Yates, yeah. Grantford Reginald Yates, Esquire, that's him. Sleazeball lawyer."

Karl chuckled deeply.

Richard gave him a look. "Is there a joke here somewhere that I'm supposed to get?"

"It's the same guy."

"What … the fur _you're_ after?"

"Yep."

"Busy boy."

"You can say that again. I'd dug up links to about a hundred and sixty million that he'd pilfered from a triple-dozen accounts and estates in the Northeast, but I missed this arm of his activities entirely." He scrolled through a few more pages and came to the end of the record. "Holy cow."

"Damnation! Is that number there …"

"Uh-huh."

Richard gave a low whistle. "He was being very optimistic, thinking this crowd could launder that much money."

"I'm not so sure they had any intention of doing that. I think they just lured him to Berlin and took it from him. There's no indication in here anywhere that they went outside. All the front companies are under their own umbrella. And you'll notice the complete lack of any record of payment back to him."

"So what happened to Yates?"

Karl cocked an eyebrow, shook his head, and drew a finger across his neck.

"Ah, yes. The standard lack of honor among those with sticky fingers."

"Some things in life may be considered constants," Karl philosophized. "That's one of them. I've not been able to confirm so much as a hint of him since the day his hotel got torched. My gut feeling is that the gang used that as cover to get rid of him. It would certainly have been worth it to them to make the effort."

"Eh. No great loss to the world. But it complicates getting our money back."

"That's true, to an extent. But I don't think we need _him_. We've got _this_." He patted the purloined drive. "It's just a matter of setting up a simple data extraction. In any case he wouldn't have had the codes to the accounts, even if the mob hadn't offed him."

"Can you dig out the numbers we need? I'm not that well-versed in the poking-around-the-computer's-innards aspect of what we're doing."

"What had you _intended_ to do once you got the drive out of there?"

"I know a couple of experts that can be trusted to keep their muzzles shut."

"Useful. But I think we can forgo that avenue."

The greyhound tossed up a noncommittal paw. "Whatever. You're the computer geek."

##

_** 5:35am **_

Richard huffed in frustration, an action that had become increasingly common over the last couple of hours. "Just a simple extraction, you said."

"Or not." Karl was just as exasperated. "To the best of my ability to determine – and if I do say so, that ability is considerable – they must be keeping all the financial access codes elsewhere."

Richard stood and stretched and picked up his satchel, tossing it over one shoulder. "Well, Gamma, not to say this hasn't been fun, or at the very least instructive, but if we've done everything with this box that can be done, I'll be on my way to Antwerp. Got an appointment with Camelot Holdings that they don't know about yet."

"I wish you good fortune in your endeavors."

"Yeah. You, too. And thanks." He walked to the door and laid a paw on the knob, waiting while Karl cut power to the anti-surveillance field. "Hey, Gamma?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't be such a stranger, eh? That was the best workout I'd had since you came by for training."

"Heh! Okay. I'll see what I can do, Richard."

After the canine left, Karl put together a quick meal from his supplies and parked himself in front of the snoop. Nor did he have to wait very long. Before seven o'clock arrived there was a sharp sound of a door being opened quickly, and then a flurry of voices yelling in Polish.

They had quite a bit to say, and none of it was complimentary. The bosses present got into a major three-way tirade, which ended in five nearly-simultaneous gunshots. After that, only one boss could be heard giving orders to the lackeys. He was positive this was an inside job. As one of the goons kept insisting, no one outside the gang even knew the computer center was here. The bent bars were an obvious red herring. No mortal fur could have come in that way.

The hall guard – who had been discovered trussed up like a turkey – was brought into the room and questioned. He knew nothing of what had happened, and said as much. When several minutes of intense persuasion failed to change his story, another gunshot sounded.

On one level the degree of carnage bothered Karl, but he hadn't really expected anything different, knowing what he did of these gangs and their methods: those that weren't in the overtly bloodthirsty majority were amoral and avaricious. In about half an hour another fur came in, evidently their resident computer expert. He examined the console and quickly agreed with the boss that it had to have been an inside job. They discussed their options. Karl learned three more names of significance and heard two cities mentioned, both in Poland. By eight o'clock a small crew arrived to clean up the mess.

Karl began packing to leave.

##


	6. Chapter 2 Isolation Part C

_**Chapter Two – Isolation – Part C**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

**If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, **

**either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing. **

_**-Benjamin Franklin**_

##

_** Thursday 12 January 2017, 10:20pm **_

"You sure?"

"Yep."

"It'll be awfully cold."

"It's cold here. We've got what we need in the way of overcoats and mittens and mukluks and whatnot."

"So you really want to come?"

"Absolutely! The kids will love it!"

Cinnamon shrugged and smiled. "Well, we'd love to have you. Heaven knows she's got used to havin' constant playmates. I'm not lookin' forward to her constantly buggin' me about goin' to see Janie."

"You wait and see. We'll have a grand time." She thought of something and snapped her fingers. "I need to find out exactly when Lee's getting back. He told me two weeks, but if experience is any kind of guide at all that'll be nothing but a rough estimate." She pulled out her PA, looked at the time, and hit a key. "I think he's two hours behind us, so he ought to be finished with supper by now."

"How long you wanna stay?"

"I don't know. That depends a good bit on when Lee …" She brightened and smiled when his image winked in on the display. "Hi, Honey!"

"Ah, 'tis the sweetest of all possible wives. Speak, that your servant may know how to act."

"Heh. Love you, too. Can you talk? You all done with supper?"

"Absolutely. Speak away."

"Okay." She reclined on the sofa, rested the PA against one knee, and said, "See, we're planning to go back to Vermont with Cinnamon, and I needed to know when you'd …"

"Excuse me?"

She noted his disturbed expression and continued, "… to Vermont. We're going. With Cinnamon and Emily."

"We, meaning you and the kids?"

"That's right."

"When?"

"Thought we'd leave Saturday."

He looked dubious. "It's a heck of a drive to Vermont from Columbus. That must be a twelve-hour trip under good conditions, and these are less than optimal."

"That's why we planned to take it in easy stages, over two days. And Cinnamon can spell me. We'll be fine."

"Hmm. I've been keeping an eye on the weather up that way. You know they've been getting hammered this winter."

"I know. I get twice-daily updates on my PA. But they haven't had any more snow in twelve days now. All the roads are clear."

"All of them?"

"Just about. And there's no more nasty stuff in the ten-day forecast. As I said, we'll be fine."

"It's my husbandly prerogative to worry about you, you know."

"I know." She wrinkled her nose at him. "But you needn't. Anyway, what I wanted to ask you about was whether you might be able to join us?"

"Come again?"

"Would you like to come up to Vermont, to Cinnamon's place. She's got a little cabin about …" She turned to the other squirrel and asked, "What did you say it was close to?"

"Well, heck, you get right down to it, nothin's really very far from anything else in that neck of the woods."

"Cinnamon …"

"Yeah, yeah. It's about three klicks from New Haven Junction. Maybe, oh, eleven or twelve from my place to the old Vulpin … that is, Ash Creek Inn. To give you a reference you'd recognize."

Debbye turned back to Lee. "You get that?"

"Yep. A dozen klicks from some of the best seafood I ever put in my mouth."

His wife grinned. "So, how much actual convincing will I have to do?"

"As long as you keep your PA with you, and I can find its GPS signature, I'd say your job was already done."

"So you'll come?"

"I'll be there with bells on."

"Great! When?"

"So far it looks like I'll be getting out of here a few days ahead of the two weeks I mentioned when I left."

"Leaving early? That'll be a first."

"Down, Honey. As I was saying, my last meeting is the morning of the sixteenth, so I can be there on the seventeenth, no sweat. That's a Tuesday."

"Okay. How are you planning to get there? We're driving. You won't be going back to Columbus first, will you?"

" … Nnnnnnno … I don't think so. I've got pretty much a free ticket on the government jet, and they were flying me back anyway. I don't see any reason why they can't drop me in Burlington instead of Columbus. I'll rent something and drive down. It's not far at all."

"Sounds like a plan!"

Cinnamon leaned over so she could see him. "You'll love the place, Lee! It's one of the prettiest areas around there if I do say so."

Lee frowned and put a knuckle to his muzzle. "Hang on. Didn't Debbye say you had a … I believe the phrase was 'little cabin'?"

"Yeah."

"And you've got room for the four of us, besides you and Emily?"

"Oh, that. Naw, you four will be staying in the barn."

"Ah. Um. I see. The barn."

Cinnamon giggled. "You oughta see your face."

"No, really, that's no problem. I just don't want to be a burden. Perhaps we could stay at the Inn."

"Relax, Lee. Believe it or not, the barn's a nicer place to stay than the house. That's where I've got my shop and kiln. I turned half the loft into guest quarters. Two bedrooms and a rumpus room. It's got its own heating system, a kitchenette, and a full bath. Kinda sparse on furniture, but it's got all the necessities. You'll be cozy."

"Oh! Well, then. I am very much looking forward to it."

"Great! I'll tell Emily." And she hopped up to do just that.

##

_** Friday 13__ January 2017, 9:45am **_

The post-breakfast kitchen clean-up completed, Cinnamon had taken a cup of coffee into the living room to warm her nose while she read the morning paper. Debbye and the three little ones were back in Emily's room engaged in some board game Cinnamon didn't recognize. It was loud and fast, and she was _**most**_ content to let her hostess oversee it.

She'd been through the comics (the 'intellectual section', as she referred to it) and the editorial pages and was working her way backwards through Section A when the landline rang. She reached over and tapped the speaker button. "Evans residence."

"Debbye, hey, don't get excited but this is Merle and I wanted to know if you'd had a chance to look over that contract yet. I know with all that crap you went through with the purists you'd be swamped, but …"

"Excuse me, sir."

"Huh?"

"Excuse me, but I'm not Debbye."

"What?"

"I'm not Debbye. I'm just a houseguest."

"Oh. Oh, I see. I'm sorry. Is she available?"

"Sure. Let me get her for you." She folded the paper and laid it on the couch, then trotted back to where the four were playing.

"Debbye, there's some guy for you on the phone."

"Who is it?"

"Some character named Merle. Said something about a contract."

Debbye smacked her forehead and jumped up. "Dang it! I forgot all about that!" And she ran for the phone. Cinnamon, understandably curious, followed her.

She plopped down on the couch. "Merle? Hi. Listen, I'm really sorry about that! I read the contract but that's about as far as I got. I hate to admit it but I haven't even finished the outline for the novel yet. I know I promised you the first chapter and the synopsis by last week, but things have been so nuts with all that junk that happened, it just totally slipped my …"

"Whoa, whoa! Hold up, Debbye. I'm not calling to fuss. I've been following the news. You've got a full plate, and it's no problem for me. I just wanted to know if you were all right, and if you'd looked it over. No time pressure."

"Oh. Well. That's good to know. I _**am**_ sorry, though."

"No need. Just think of this as a friendly reminder." He allowed himself a chuckle and added, "Not the kind the credit companies send out."

"Heh. Thanks, Merle. I'll get you something to work with by the end of the month, Scout's honor."

"That's good enough for me. Don't kill yourself. Your fans will wait. But I did want you to know we hadn't forgotten about you."

"Darn good thing, too, as long as it takes me to turn out a story." They said their good-byes and Debbye hung up.

Cinnamon tapped her on the arm. Debbye turned and looked at her.

"Novel? Contract? What's up?"

"Uh. Well, see, I've sort of got a … you could call it a hobby, I guess."

"You write?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of stuff? He said something about fans."

"Novels, mostly. Historical fiction."

"Like what?"

"Um …" She glanced over Cinnamon's shoulder at a bookcase and headed in that direction. "I've got them here. The publisher always sends me the first editions, so I've got a complete set." She pointed to the second shelf from the top.

Cinnamon didn't count them, but there seemed to be somewhere around two dozen books on the shelf. "You wrote all these? That's some hobby!"

"Oh, no! Please! Just a few of those are mine. They start on the left." She reached up and pulled down the first one in line, passing it to Cinnamon.

Her face immediately brightened. "Hey! I've seen this in the bookstores!"

"Probably. For some reason they seem to be fairly popular."

She looked at the spine. "Jane Swift, huh? Gotta use one of those 'nom de plumes', do you?"

"Well, given Lee's government connections I thought it prudent."

Cinnamon, who was most intrigued with Debbye's 'cottage industry', plucked the next book off the shelf. "Bridget Carpenter? What's up with that?"

"Huh?"

"You switched names."

"Oh. That. Yeah, I used different names in the various books. They're divided along topical lines. Jane Swift writes about World War II. Ms. Carpenter concentrates on the California gold rush."

"Okay. I guess that sort of makes sense." She reached up, pretty much at random, and got the fifth book to the right, startling visibly at the name on the cover.

"Hey! Savannah MacIntyre!"

Debbye seemed puzzled by Cinnamon's reaction. "Uh … yes. She writes semi-historical romances set in the Ohio Valley in the 1820's."

"I know! I've got the trilogy!"

The squirrel nodded, pleased with that revelation. "You know of an author by the name of Zane Grey?"

"Oh, sure! I ate his stuff up as a teenager."

"Well, he did a sort of bio-history on one of his forebears. I liked the idea, but my ancestors didn't move to this area until the 1890's. So while the characters are named for some of my people, they actually lived in Virginia. I used the local setting because I'm familiar with it."

She stared at Debbye. "Wait just a nut-pickin' second here. _This_ is yours, _too?"_

"Oh, yes. Her stories are my personal favorites."

"Debbye? Do you mean to say that _**you**_ are Savannah MacIntyre?"

"Yes. What's so special about that?"

"Heh! _**You're**_ Savannah MacIntyre." She put her head back and laughed. "Proper little Debbye Evans is Savannah _**MacIntyre**_! Oh, that's too much!"

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, like you don't know!"

Debbye gave her a puzzled look.

"_You_ know! That, um, 'technique' that Molly used to escape from leFeu in the second book?"

Debbye's eyes widened. Her muzzle fluffed out and she looked away. "Oh. That."

"Yeah, that! Did you make all that up yourself?"

"Uh … yeah."

Cinnamon flopped back on the couch and hooted with laughter. She sat back up, listened for the kids, and when she didn't hear them, asked, "You ever try that with Lee?"

"Cinnamon!"

"Just 'tween us girls. Did you?"

"Uh …"

"You did! You _had_ to. Either that, or you've got the most vivid imagination ever."

"Well …" She grinned sheepishly. "You know what they say: write about what you know."

"Hah! I knew it!" She slapped her knee and said, "Of course it was all done in the name of research, just to be fully accurate. Right?"

"Ah … right."

Cinnamon was still crowing about the situation when Emily came into the room, George and Linda trailing at each elbow. "Mommy, what's so funny?"

The squirrel wiped her eyes and gathered her daughter into her arms, parking her on one hip as she stood. "Nothing you'd understand yet, Sweetie." She noticed Debbye's extreme discomfiture and decided to give her hostess a little breather, so she asked her daughter, "Say, you wanna show me how to play your game?"

"Sure!" That brightened up the little girl considerably, and the twins bounced up and down and off each other as they all trooped back into the hall.

As Cinnamon made her exit she looked back at Debbye, noting with high amusement that a blush still had her muzzle fur well-fluffed. "Hey!" she called, "we'll keep your seat warm, okay?"

"Uh … yeah. Be there in a minute." And she hurried to her room for her facial brushes.

##

_**__ Sunday 15 January 2017, 3:00pm **_

The big SUV bumped and rocked wildly as they negotiated the narrow track back to Cinnamon's place. Debbye grabbed on to the paw-strap by her head as she yelped, "Slow down!"

The other squirrel gave a yipe of her own and hit the brakes. Their vehicle shuddered to a stop and both femmes caught their breath. "Wow. I don't remember the ruts being that bad."

They heard giggling behind them and turned to look at the kids. Linda said, "C'n we do dat agin?"

"No!" Cinnamon put it back in drive and crept the last hundred meters back to her house. She went around it, though, and on to the large barn just beyond. There was an equipment shed tacked onto the near side, and she drove up under that where the snow wasn't quite so deep. Leaving the engine running, she said, "Okay, everyone, just sit tight while I hop out and run inside. Gotta get the heat fired up."

As the door slammed, George said, "Mama?"

"Yes, dear?"

"We have any uh dose pop-tarts weft?"

"Sure do. You want one?"

"Uh-huh."

Of course nothing else would do but that the other two children have their own pastries, but Debbye didn't mind. Sometimes the rules of good nutrition had to be bent. This trip was one of those times.

Cinnamon came back out in about ten minutes and jumped into the warm vehicle. "Dad-blame it all anyway!"

"What? What's wrong?"

"Stupid heatin' system. I left all the pilots on and the heat set to ten, so nothing would freeze."

"Oh, no! Did the system fail?"

"Somethin' failed. Don't know what. I was able to get the pilots re-lit and the furnace goin', but it'll be a while 'fore it's fit for habitation."

"Did any of the plumbing fixtures crack? Or can you tell yet?"

"They shouldn't have. I used that high-flex ABS in all the pipin', and I drained everything that held water 'fore leaving."

"That was a nice bit of foresight."

"No, that was Karl's recommendation."

"Karl Luscus?"

"Yeah. He came by to check on me that Friday before Halloween, before we … um … that is, before I left to …" Her eyes clouded with remembrance of that time.

Debbye reached over and clasped her paw. "I know."

"Sorry." She sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. "Should be over that by now."

"No. Not necessarily. You're braver than I, Cinnamon. And that's all I'll say about it."

The other squirrel gave her a watery smile. "Thanks." Then she dabbed at her nose again and hung a bright expression across her face. "How about I go see how things faired in the house? If it's still okay, we can jam in there until the loft heats up."

"That's fine."

"Will do, then!" She hopped out of the SUV and strode away toward the cabin, shoulders square.

##


	7. Chapter 2 Isolation Part D

_**Chapter Two – Isolation – Part D**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

**The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly.**

_**-Adrienne Rich**_

##

_** Wednesday 18 January 2017, 4:10pm **_

"It is ver' int'reshtin'," Wendy said idly to herself, "what may be achieve' through th' proshesh of dishtillasta … dishtillibish …" She thought hard and spoke slowly. "Dish-till-a-shun." _There_, she thought with a smile. _Got it._

Take this marvelous single-malt Scottish whisky, for example. Some time back in 1922 or 1923 one of the industrious pine martens native to the Highlands had distilled an excellent barley ferment into its quintessential spirit, poured it up into oaken casks, and left them to mature into actual whiskey. A good one would have matured for twelve to fifteen years, evaporating some of the alcohol, reducing the level of ketones, trading cogenerics with the atmosphere, and generally acquiring that smooth, mellow, earthy flavor that aficionados so love. This particular barrel had been forgotten for a while and was rediscovered in 1965, its initial burden of almost forty gallons having shrunk to barely twenty-one. Her uncle had prudently purchased a quantity of it, and seventeen bottles of the sparkling, amber liquid yet resided in her cellar. She held the glass up, letting the slanting afternoon light play around the edges, and cast the odd woozy image against the far wall.

This wasn't the sort of drink one just tossed off. She took a slow, appreciative sip and leaned her head against the arm of the couch, letting the spirit slide past her tongue and warm the back of her throat. After two more sips it occurred to her that she hadn't heard any music for several minutes.

_Musta got to the end of that record. Well I can fix that._

She slowly and carefully levered herself up on one elbow, then just as carefully sat up as straight as she could manage, which wasn't initially all _that_ straight. Another minute or so having elapsed, she stood, holding on tightly to the back of the chair beside the couch, and then walked with dainty and meticulous care over to the control panel.

_Lessee … oh, yeah … there's all those numbers … now just gotta push 'em._

An unsteady finger stabbed at the keypad several times. She had not a clue as to which ones she selected, or their order, but a faint chime sounded to indicate that the system had understood and accepted her choice. Happy with herself, she wove a looping path back to her couch and flopped down, giggling at how the room spun around her.

She didn't worry that her selection would displease her, having spent rather a lot of time culling everything objectionable from her collection that she could find; but that still left a mighty body of work to choose from. With all the thousands of albums she had, many of her recordings hadn't been played in years. Case in point …

A simple, pleasant acoustic guitar filled the air, setting a steady meter for the song.

_I am on a lonely road and I am traveling_

_Traveling, traveling, traveling_

_Looking for something, what can it be?_

_Oh I hate you some, I hate you some, I love you some_

_Oh I love you … when I forget about me. _

_Wait … I know this … I __think__ I know this … It's a Joni Mitchell album. _An image of the willowy collie singer danced across her mind._ Wow. Haven't heard her sing in … wow … how long? … a long time._

_I want to be strong, I want to laugh along, I want to belong_

_to the living_

_Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive,_

_I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive._

_Do you want – do you want – do you want to dance_

_with me baby?_

_Do you want to take a chance_

_on maybe finding some sweet romance_

_with me baby?_

_Well, come on … _

_What __is__ the name of that bloody album? _She turned the question over in her head._ It isn't __**Court and Spark**__, 'cause that's the first song on that one. I don't think it's __**Wild Things Run Fast**__ or __**Both Sides Now**__, but it sounds like one of her early things. Didn't know I had any others._

She settled down to listen, concentrating on the music as well as she could.

… _want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you,_

_I want to renew you again and again._

_Applause, applause – Life is our cause._

_When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws!_

_Do you see – do you see – do you see how you hurt me baby?_

_So I hurt you too,_

_then we both get … so … blue. _

_Damn if that don't sound like me and Ellen. Or me and Karl. _ That thought brought back to her one of the reasons that she'd gotten plastered this evening, and her muzzle twisted in disgust. _Wish to hell he'd call an' let me know __somethin'__! Anything, dammit!_ She pulled herself away from that path and tried to listen again.

_I am on a lonely road and I am traveling._

_Looking for the key to set me free. _

"Aw, hell. Why don' you jush go 'head an' write one f'r _me_, Joni, huh? Shit! Wha's up wi' thish, huh?" She finished her glass and poured herself another.

_Oh, the jealousy, the greed is the_

_unraveling,_

_it's the unraveling,_

_and it undoes all the joy that could be._

_I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun,_

_I want to be the one_

_that you want to see._

_I want to knit you a sweater,_

_want to write you a love letter,_

_I want to make you feel better,_

_I want to make you feel … free …_

_I want to make you feel free. _

_Well that's just dandy! Yeah. Go on. Make __me__ feel free, why don't you? Bitch._

The singer expanded on the opening phrase again and the song trailed off.

Wendy considered changing albums, but there were two things preventing that: she still hadn't come up with the name of this one, and it was a point of personal pride that she always was able to do so; and changing the album would entail getting up again, which she wasn't really inclined to do. So she stayed where she was as the next song began.

_Born with the moon in Cancer …_

_Choose her a name she will answer_

_to:_

_Call her Green_

_and the winters cannot fade her._

_Call her Green_

_for the children who've made her._

_Little Green,_

_be a gypsy dancer. _

_Oh, __hell__, no! I remember this one!_ She knew that many of Joni Mitchell's songs were autobiographical to one extent or another. This one was a commentary on a child she'd had out of wedlock, and it always depressed Wendy. She set her drink on the floor and covered her ears. "La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la …"

After a minute or so she listened again.

_Child with a child pretending,_

_weary of lies you are sending_

_home._

_So you sign all the papers in the family name._

_You're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed._

_Little Green, have a happy ending. _

"Dammit!" She re-covered her ears. When she chose to listen again, a different song was playing.

… _it don't snow here._

_It stays pretty green._

_I'm going to make a lot of money_

_then I'm going to quit this crazy scene._

_Oh I wish I had a river … I could skate away on._

_I wish I had a river so long_

_I would … teach my feet to … fly …_

_I wish I had a river … I could skate away on._

_I made my baby cry. _

_Hmph. Sounds like her life sucked as much as mine does. Hell, I think I remember hearing one time about all the different affairs she had that went south. Poor kid. Maybe writing songs about all that shit made her feel better._ She vented a bitter laugh. _Or at least passed the monkey to somefur else._

_I'm so hard to handle,_

_I'm selfish and I'm sad._

_Now I've gone and lost the best baby_

_that I ever had._

_I wish I had a river … I could skate away on. _

_Yeah. You and me both._ She repositioned herself and picked her drink up, taking a good, long swallow. She closed her eyes and let the music wash past her.

The next few songs weren't quite as personally affecting, but sad nevertheless. The sixth one to play rang the bell for her.

_Songs are like tattoos._

_You know I've been to sea_

_before:_

_Crown and anchor me_

_or let me sail away._

_Hey, Blue, here is a song for you. _

"Blue! Yeah, thash th' name o' thish album. Ish 'Blue'."

_Ink on a pin_

_underneath the skin_

_an empty space to fill in._

_Well there're so many sinking _

_now,_

_you've got to keep thinking _

_you can make it through these waves._

_Acid, booze, and ass,_

_needles, guns, and grass …_

_lots of laughs … lots of laughs. _

She snorted a chuckle._ Huh. University of Pennsylvania all over again._ She listened to the rest of the song and took another sip. She now knew the album, but many of the songs had been somewhat unfamiliar. So was the next one.

The opening instrumental was beautiful, in a melancholy sort of way: a long, rippling piano solo of small minor chords and high, tinkling resolutions. Then Joni started singing.

_The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in sixty-eight_

_and he told me_

'_All romantics meet the same fate_

_someday –_

_cynical and drunk_

_and boring someone in some dark café.' _

Wendy snorted_. Oh, is that right? Well, for your information I'm __not__ boring anyone. There's nobody else here._

'_You laugh,' he said,_

'_you think you're immune._

_Go look at your eyes,_

_they're full of moon._

_You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you _

_all those pretty lies … pretty lies … _

She lowered her drink to rest on her belly. The song was coming back to her now. To the best of her recollection, she'd still been married to Arthur the last time she'd heard it. She thought … she thought that her reaction then had been … was it pity? Yeah. That sounded about right. She'd felt sorry for the chick in the song.

'_When you gonna realize_

_they're only pretty lies?_

_Only pretty lies … just pretty lies. _

_He's right, ya know. That Richard character. They all lie, and it ain't just th' guys. Damn Jenna anyway. An' damn Karl, too. Freakin' told me he was gonna call ever' chance he got. Ain't heard shit in a goddam week. Like he fell off the damn planet. Him an' his little __pieces__ of truth. Dammit, he knows half a truth is worse than an outright lie._

_Richard put a quarter in the Wurlitzer_

_and he pushed three buttons_

_and the thing began to whirr._

_And a barmaid came by in fishnet stockings and a bow tie_

_and she said, 'Drink up now, it's gettin' on time to close.'_

'_Richard, you haven't really changed,' I said,_

'_It's just that now you're romanticizing some pain that's in your head._

_You got tombs in your eyes_

_but the songs you punched are dreaming,_

_listen,_

_they sing of love so sweet, love so sweet._

_When you gonna get yourself back on your feet?_

_Oh and love can be so sweet … love … so sweet.  
_

_Yeah. It can. I guess. It usually isn't, though. It's usually a right royal pain in the ass. _She poured the last swallow of whiskey down her throat, looked at the bottle, and refilled her glass.

_Richard got married to a figure skater_

_and he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator._

_And he drinks home now most nights with the TV on_

_and all the house lights left up bright. _

That made her eyes smart, and she blinked a few times._ What the hell is it about poetry that can say so damn much with just a few words? Damn, but I feel sorry for that guy._

_I'm gonna blow this damn candle out._

_I don't want nobody comin' over to my table,_

_I got nothing to talk to anybody about._

_All good dreamers pass this way some day,_

_hidin' behind bottles in dark cafés …_

_dark cafés … _

_Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away,_

_only a phase … _

_these dark … café … days. _

_Only a phase?_

She sat, still as glass and twice as brittle, bright eyes brimming, staring at nothing. The song ended with a reprise of the initial piano solo, each note of the reflective melody pounding that last phrase into her mind.

_Only a phase? How would I know?_

The sun had set while she lay there on the couch, listening to the old songs, the room growing murky with the fading of the light. That song had been the last one on the album, and when the pianist finished, an oppressive silence settled in around Wendy's shoulders.

She lifted the glass to her mouth and drank, not tasting the liquor, hardly even aware of what she was doing, gazing off into a past piled deep with regrets and unrealized dreams.

_Only a phase? Is it really?_

She drank, unmindful of the occasional tear that splashed into the glass.

After a while, she didn't bother with the glass any more.

##

**Here Ends Chapter Two**


	8. Chapter 3 Return Part A

_**Chapter Three – Return – Part A**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

**There is nothing that keeps its youth  
****So far as I know, but a tree and truth.**

**-**_**Oliver Wendell Holmes**_

##

_** Friday 20 January 2017, 10:30am **_

Debbye called, "Hey, Cinnamon, come listen to this." She pointed the remote at the panel and turned up the volume. The red squirrel skipped over to where her friend was splayed out on a couch and gave her attention to the weather reporter on the widescreen.

"… has local meteorologists worried because of the huge snow burden Vermont is already carrying. This fast-moving super-cell has blanketed eastern Michigan with a heavy layer of sleet and snow that broke all previous two-day-fall records. The NOAA says that if it maintains its momentum when it arrives here in New England, we could expect as much as a meter of accumulation in some places." The busty chinchilla held up both paws in a gesture of caution. "Now, folks, I know some of you are still digging out from that last pounding we took, but the Governor has urged us to look to our stocks of food and water. Everyone should have at least a week's worth, in case the roads become impassable. Here's a list of what a family of four would need, at a minimum …"

They watched and listened for a few more minutes, their disquiet growing. Debbye looked at the other femme. "Where's Lee?"

"He took the kids up to Pryor's Top for some tobogganing."

They both got up and went over to the window. The sky was a cerulean bowl, unmarred by any trace of white. Cinnamon remarked, "Gonna hafta work real hard if it wants t' snow here!"

"Maybe. Or maybe this is just what the storm is pushing out of the way."

"Eh. Could be. Hate to think that, though. Been so nice lately."

Debbye scooted over to the kitchen and got her PA. She flipped it open and said, "Lee Evans." In a few seconds her husband's face appeared on the screen. He grinned and said, "Hey, Sweets! How may I be of service?"

"We need a pow-wow. There's a storm on the way and we need to make some decisions."

"A storm? Big one?"

"Really big, according to the news. They're using terms like 'snowed in' and 'long-term stores'. Scary stuff."

"What kind of time do we have?"

"Better than a day, but probably not two. It's just leaving Michigan."

"Hmh. Okay. That's not long."

"No. That's why I didn't just wait for you to get back."

Lee glanced at the time on his PA and nodded to himself. "Right. Okay, we'll finish up here and be back to the house by noon. How's that?"

"Sounds good."

"In the meantime, why don't you get a start on packing, just in case."

"Good idea."

"Yeah." He looked away and said something she couldn't make out, then looked back with a grin. "I've got at least one more good trip down the hill to make before we can leave. We'll see you soon, though."

"Darn right you will."

With a few more fond expressions of affection, the two signed off. Lee placed his PA back in its holster and began the long trudge back up the hill.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Sweetie?"

"Do we gots ta leave?"

"Yeah, pretty soon. Lots of snow on the way."

Linda said, "I wike snow," and reached down to scoop up a tiny pawful.

"I do, too, Honey, but too much snow can be a big problem. Remember all those car wrecks we saw on TV?"

"Uh-huh."

"That comes from too much snow. See, what we have around here is just …"

His PA sang at him again, this time to a tune he knew all too well. With a sigh, he stopped pulling the toboggan, pulled out the device instead, and put it to his ear. "Aaron?"

"Yeah, Lee, hey listen, you gotta get outta there 'cause there's a huge front on the way and it's gonna close the place down and you've got to present …"

"Yes, Aaron, _yes_ … I got it. Slow down and take a deep breath. I know all about the storm."

"Oh. Okay. Good. Shoulda figured you'd be on top of things."

"Debbye's already packing."

"Great. That's good to know. There's a bird on the way."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah. General Thorn worried you might not make it to the airport ahead of the storm. He's warming up a chopper with your name on it. Should be in your AO by fourteen-hundred."

Lee grimaced. If the General could have worked his will, Lee would never have any sort of private life to speak of. "Roger that, Aaron. We'll be ready to scoot by then."

"Excellent. I'll pass that along. We'll be seeing you tomorrow, looks like."

"Yeah. Whoopee."

Aaron chuckled and remarked, "Y'know, Lee, I'm not feelin' the love here."

"Ha-ha. You'll be here all week, right? Try the veal, right?"

"It ain't _my_ fault, Lee."

"I know. Sorry. I just hate to have to interrupt this."

"Well, hey, howsabout if I can put the General off for another day? Give you a little breathing room after you get back from the boonies."

"Sounds good. I'll take it."

"Okay, then, we'll see you the day _after_ tomorrow."

"Right. See you." Lee looked down at his daughter, who was pulling on his parka. He flipped the PA closed and knelt to her eye level. "Yes?"

"Are we gonna swide down again?"

"We are."

"Okay." She sat back with an expectant look on her face. Lee, hiding a grin, picked up the reins and resumed his upward march.

##

_** 3:30pm **_

Debbye thumped down the stairs, following the copilot who carried the last of her bags. Cinnamon, who was right behind her, offered, "Well, it was fun while it lasted."

"It was that," answered her friend. "And we'll be back, you can bank on it."

"And Emily will bug me to distraction until then."

"You'll live."

"I'm sorry I didn't have any nut meringues."

"Heh! So am I. Sort of." Debbye patted her belly. "I put on enough weight around the holidays as it is, without _that_ nasty little temptation."

"Yeah, know what you mean. 's funny, though."

"What?"

"Funny we couldn't get hold of Wendy."

"Oh. Yeah. Maybe she high-tailed it until warmer weather gets back."

"Maybe," answered Cinnamon dubiously. "But I woulda thought she'd leave some kind of message saying so, instead of that _'this number is no longer in service'_ crap."

"Eh. That is sort of weird." Debbye pulled the door shut behind her and followed her friend over to where the rest of her guests waited in the car. "It's a shame we never made it over there. I'd have liked to see her, if she's there."

"Yeah, well. The kids were having too much fun beating up on Lee."

Debbye giggled at that. "I guess we'll have to make it a point to visit her when we come back."

"I'll tell her you asked after her, next time I see her."

"Thanks! I'd appreciate it." She gave Cinnamon a quick hug and got in beside her husband. Cinnamon fished her daughter out of the back seat, and both of them waved as the short cavalcade plowed slowly away down her drive.

##

_** Satur__day 21 January 2017, 1:30pm **_

Ash Creek burbled, slow and thin, far down in its bed. The near-side rivulet that had run so swiftly past the gazebo the summer before was a wan, frozen track, rapidly losing its identity under the accumulating precipitation. Already the rocks scattered between the banks were mere humps of white. Blowing a frustrated sigh, Wendy turned and tromped back up to the house, occasionally stopping to wiggle her toes inside her mukluks to try to keep them warm.

After doffing her hat and scarf and mittens and parka and footwear, she spent a minute or so in the center of the nearest heating grate before heading out to the kitchen. Aside from a cup of strong coffee shortly after dawn, she'd had nothing to eat today, and her stomach was complaining. Rummaging through the refrigerator turned up several likely candidates. She carried a carton of eggs over to the stove, and set a few slices of prosciutto, a block of seven-year-old cheddar, an onion, some fresh basil, and a small jar of cumin seeds beside it. Before starting her omelet she turned on the radio and tuned it to a weather channel.

"… running its course. We can expect a low tonight in Montpelier of minus twenty-two; winds out of the northwest at twenty-five, gusting to forty, resulting in wind chills of minus forty or lower; chance of precipitation, fifty percent. For tomorrow the high will be minus six, mostly cloudy; winds out of the northwest at ten to twenty. For tomorrow night, very clear and bitterly cold. Low near minus thirty-five. Winds light and variable. Accumulations of up to sixty centimeters are expected from the storm, with fresh drifts of two meters or more in the mountains. Travel advisories are in effect for the next week. The Governor has placed the National Guard on alert …"

_Tomorrow's __**high**__ is six below? This cold is just ridiculous. Glad I've got propane heat. I'm gonna stoke up the fire anyway. _

While she mixed and stirred and chopped and sautéed, she followed the rest of the report. There was little in the way of good news. All of New England was in the same fix, with every state's emergency response network stretched thin as a whisper. Everyone was urged most strongly to stay home, batten down the hatches, and ride it out. They had a couple of rather gruesome stories to hammer the point home.

She took her lunch with her to the library, directing the audio system to broadcast there as well. After dropping a couple of small chunks of wood onto the softly flaming embers, and poking the results around a bit, she scooted a chair over in front of it and propped her feet up on an ottoman so the heat could toast her footpads.

The weather report segued to a three-way debate between some meteorologists who worked for the NOAA. Two of them made dire predictions about flooding, once the weather warmed sufficiently. The third pooh-poohed that notion, predicting a slow, late spring that would allow time for the extra snow to dissipate. They all had quite a bit to say about sun cycles and the odd behavior of ocean currents over the previous decade, and how the diminished glaciers in the Arctic were contributing to global warming. That made no sense to Wendy, who finally flicked the system off with an irritated gesture.

She added a larger log to the fire, and went back to the kitchen for a cup of tea. While waiting for the water to boil, she pulled out the PA Karl had given her. Flipping it open, she clicked down through the short list of contacts it contained.

_Jenna._ A few days before, in a maudlin fit of melancholy brought on by an excess of brown liquor, Wendy had dialed that number. She didn't remember much about the conversation, except that it had been short, and vitriolic on the part of both parties. Not very promising.

_Teresa Weidi._ After some digging Wendy had learned that the bubbly margay had made good on her threat to move south. She sighed and erased the number.

_Sabrina._ She'd talked with the comely skunk nearly two weeks ago, right after Karl left for parts unknown. She and her kids had been packing for a trip out west to stay with Chris' cousin in New Mexico for a while. She'd likely be too busy with visiting and sight-seeing to talk.

_Debbye Evans._ Eh. She didn't really know her well enough to call her up just to bitch about being lonely.

_Quinn._ No. Maybe in a real emergency … or if that fox had shown up again. Not for this.

_Cinnamon._ That was a possibility. She was certainly friendly enough. She stared at the entry a few more seconds and then hit the key.

A couple of clicks sounded in her ear as the satellite connection was established, then two short rings, then it flipped over to voice mail. _"Hi, this is Cinnamon. You know the drill. Fire when ready." _ Wendy sighed and closed the PA.

The tea kettle began to whistle. She poured some of the hot water into her cup and took it with her as she walked to the south set of windows. The garden shed was still recognizable as such, but at the rate the snow was coming down, it wouldn't be for long. Idly stirring the tea bag around in her cup, she leaned against the window frame, staring off into the white distance.

##


	9. Chapter 3 Return Part B

_**Chapter Three – Return – Part B**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

_** Sunday 22 January 2017, 12:45pm **_

Brunch, such as it had been, was over; the few dishes were cleaned and put away and Wendy had mixed up a hot toddy to sip in front of the fire. She'd spent the morning going over her financial situation. It wasn't pleasant. She still hadn't heard from Ginger Piercer about the catering bill, not even after a second reminder. There were a double pawful of bills that _she_ couldn't pay – not fully at any rate – until that money came in. At least she had plenty of food, and two huge propane tanks that were close to full. "Now, if Karl could just find out what happened to all my stipend money," she muttered, "and maybe get a little of it back …"

Her PA buzzed, startling her. She set her drink on the side table, scrabbled the communication device out of a pocket, and flicked it open. "Hello?"

"Hey, Wendy. Sorry I was gone so long. I should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque."

Her stomach did a half-gainer into her pelvis. "Karl!" _Speak of the devil, and there he is!_ "Where are you?"

"I'm back in town. Just got back. I have a little unpacking to do and …"

"How come I can't see you?"

"I'm using a paws-free unit. No video. Sorry."

"Oh. Okay." That annoyed her more than she thought it should. "Did you find him?"

"Him? You mean Yates?"

"Yeah."

"Not exactly. I think he's dead."

"You _think_ he's dead? You aren't sure?"

"Not a hundred percent, no. I wasn't able to locate him physically. He'd gotten in tight with a branch of the Polish mafia, just as I'd thought, and I'm pretty sure they got rid of him."

"Oh. Okay. So … what does that mean about the money he took?"

"Ah. That shouldn't be a problem. I _was_ able to track your cash down."

"Well, thank God!"

"Hah! I thought you didn't believe in God."

Her muzzle twisted in distaste. "Believing in Him isn't the issue. I just don't trust Him."

"You don't?"

"No. Not as far as I can toss a locomotive."

"But you just thanked Him."

"It's … just a figure of speech. You know that."

"Sounded more like a Freudian slip to me."

"You're wrong, Karl."

"And yet you …"

"Just drop it, okay?"

She could hear that irritating amusement in his voice. "No problem."

"So you're in town now?"

"Yes." He followed her course correction smoothly. "As I said, I just got back to the Shop."

"You coming out to … oh, wait. Never mind."

"Never mind what?"

"I thought we could get together and go over the details and stuff, but with all this stupid snow, I don't know if you …"

"Oh, the snow won't be any problem. I'll borrow Quinn's old snowmobile and tool on out there tomorrow."

"Quinn has a snowmobile?"

"Ayah."

"Huh. Okay." She paused in thought and asked, "Tomorrow? It's just a little past noon. Can't you make it out today?"

"No, sorry. Got a lot of things to check up on. I'll be on the computer the rest of the day. I've got your money coming, but it will need some guidance to make it here safely."

"… Guidance?"

"Yeah. It has to be legit, all the T's dotted, all the I's crossed. You know."

"Actually I don't know. I never handled any multinational transactions when I worked for StrongArm." She frowned and asked, "Just how _did_ you get back, anyway? You bum a ride on a helicopter?"

"Nah. Rented an ATV. The main roads aren't _too_ bad as long as you don't try to countermand the laws of physics."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But … you _are_ coming out tomorrow?"

"First thing in the morning, I promise. I'll show you where the money is, and where it will end up. You'll have full access to it, by the way."

"_**Really?"**_

"Yep. No more stipends. You can set up any kind of financial instrument you like. Or you can blow it all. But I don't think you'll do that."

"No! Not at all! I'd never waste it. But there are a bunch of …"

He waited a few moments for that sentence to resolve. When it didn't, he asked, "Bunch of what?"

"Hmm?"

"Your train of thought seems to have derailed."

"Oh. Yeah, sorry. Had a senior moment there."

"You're allowed. A bunch of what?"

"Bunch of it-would-take-too-long-to-explain. Don't worry. We'll go over it all when you get here."

"Works for me."

"Hey … what do you mean, I'm 'allowed'?"

He chuckled. "We all have them. Unless you're some sort of supernatural being, you will experience a brain burp on occasion. And although your form definitely smacks of the angelic, I don't think you're immune."

"… Angelic?"

Karl's heart tripped over itself a couple of times. _Angelic?_ _Did I just say that? _He did a quick replay._ Holy smokes, I did!_ His mind racing, he said, "I'm sorry, I meant no offence. It's just that you've made such a point about your age that I … no, wait, that didn't come out right. What I meant was …"

Wendy only listened with half an ear. _Angelic? Does he actually think that? _

"… and other furs are always mistaking you for someone in her twenties, and I certainly understand how they might get that impression since you're so … that is, I, uh …"

_If he feels that way, how come he stays so standoffish? I mean, what are the odds? _She tossed the issue back and forth in her mind, examining it from new angles._ We got really close to having something like a relationship. Could he still be hanging on to that? But …but he said … what was it he said? Something about incompatible philosophies? I never did fully understand his argument._

She realized that he had stopped talking and asked, "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

He took a deep breath and answered, "I wish I knew. I think it was an apology."

"Okay. Apology accepted. If you feel it necessary."

"I honestly don't know. What I think is that I'm still suffering jet lag or something. My brain seems to be on the fritz."

"Well … maybe you should get a good power nap under your belt before you tackle the computer."

"That's not a bad idea. Thanks."

"All right, then. I'll, um, see you tomorrow? Right?"

"Right. Goodbye."

"See ya."

She closed the PA and laid it on the table, then picked up her drink and took a sip, her nose wrinkling at the tepid condition of the toddy. Sighing, she got to her feet and strode over to the microwave in one of the bookshelves. Placing the mug inside, she closed the door and punched the 'Beverage' button.

_So. Angelic, is it? That's his view of me? Or something. I haven't heard him get that flustered since he asked me to the hayride. _She watched her mug rotate on the glass in the microwave, and let her mind drift into pleasant memories.

Her re-heated toddy in paw, she wandered out into the hall, not heading anywhere in particular, nursing the drink as she thought about that conversation. She replayed all the statements, examining them for nuance. By the time the brandied concoction was gone, she found herself in the south half of the Front Hall. She leaned her head against a window and stared out across the white expanse, noting how difficult it was to determine where the road lay. Certainly nofur would be coming out this way without the benefit of a snowmobile, an oddly rare conveyance in these parts. She hadn't known that Quinn owned one. A few more minutes of reflection brought her to a decision, whereupon she strode off purposefully toward the stairs, breaking into a trot when she reached the landing.

A half-hour's rummage in the third floor storage rooms brought to light the items she wanted. It took some ingenuity to get the boots to fit, since they were sized for her uncle, and were nearly twice as big as her own feet, but eventually she managed to get them strapped on over her mukluks. _Just as well,_ she thought, _I don't think they'd be warm enough for this otherwise._

By three o'clock she was ready. She stuck her PA and a few other essentials in a fanny pack, wrapped up in her parka, positioned the sun goggles over her eyes, and struck out for New Haven Junction, her skis swishing a regular rhythm in the otherwise dead silence.

##

_** __5:50pm **_

The sun had set. Both the temperature and her stamina were dropping rapidly by the time she got to the edge of town. She knew that it was only about eight kilometers to the center of New Haven, and hadn't thought this excursion would take anything _like_ the nearly three hours she'd spent toiling through the light drifts. But a trip to the Catskills with Arthur on their second anniversary had been her one exposure to downhill skiing, and this cross-country variation bore no resemblance _at all_ to that sport. As it happened, the general slope of the land rose in the direction she wanted to go. She was exhausted, and trembling on her feet as she pushed on into the town.

The town was closed down tight. That shouldn't have surprised her, given the condition of Main Street. Snow reached to the bottoms of most of the shop windows, and partially covered a few. _Be just my luck to make it to town so I can die of hypothermia in comfort._ But then she spotted a light down the street. Quinn's store was open. _Of course! He lives in the attic. He doesn't have to 'go' anywhere to show up for work._

That cheered her a bit, and she forged on, convincing her wobbly legs to take her just another hundred meters or so. Once on the wide porch, she leaned against the wall and blew several long panting breaths while she undid the laces on the ski boots.

##

Quinn and Karl sat in front of the aged raccoon's pot-bellied stove, deeply engrossed in a game of Go. Cinnamon watched with occasional interest; she knew how to play, insofar as she knew the rules of placement, but she was almost entirely innocent of the finer points of strategy. Some of the moves the two furs laid down made no sense to her at all. Emily played among the aisles, running over to her mother every few minutes to show her something that fascinated her six-year-old mind. All eyes turned to the door when it creaked and knocked into the bell.

Emily cried, "Miz Wendy!" She grabbed Cinnamon's paw and began jumping up and down and shouting, "Mama! It's Miz Wendy!"

Cinnamon gaped and said, "How the _heck_ did you get here?"

One of Quinn's eyebrows climbed a bit.

Wendy's gaze zeroed in on the _most_ unexpected sight of the big wolverine. Her heart suddenly seemed too large for her chest, her throat tight. Karl jumped to his feet when he spotted her and took a few steps in her direction. She ran to him, her icy footpads forgotten, and leaped into his arms. Locked in her tight embrace, he spun her around a few times. She buried her face in the long fur of his chest. Quinn exchanged a pointed glance with Cinnamon, who fought down a sudden case of Green-Eyed Monster.

"Wendy!" exclaimed Karl in shock, "How _did_ you get here?"

"Sk-k-k-kis," she chattered. "C-can we g-g-go over t-to th-the stove? I'm f-f-freezing."

He carried her to his seat and positioned her on his lap, scooting the chair around so she faced the stove. Quinn leaned over and opened the door to the firebox. Wendy used her teeth to pull off her mittens, and held her paws out to the glowing coals. "Oh … ouch!"

"What?"

"My p-paws g-got a little c-colder than I thought."

Karl took one paw and turned it palm-up, examining her fingers closely. In a moment he said, "Well you don't have frostbite, which is good, but the skin there is pretty red. I'll bet they tingle something fierce."

"Y-yeah." She held them closer to the fire and flexed them several times.

Quinn observed, "Ya know, it's 'sposed ta hit twenty-five below t'night. Cahn't be much more'n that out there naow. Snowin' ta beat sixty, top o' that."

Wendy nodded. "And I believe every last degree."

Karl was incredulous. Glancing out the front window, he said, "And you came all the way from the Inn through _that?_"

"… Yeah."

Cinnamon said, "Okay. And the sixty-four dollar question is … how come?"

"Because I … well, see, there was … it was so boring in that great big place by myself and … well …" She reached down and shucked off her mukluks.

"And what?" Cinnamon prompted.

"… and I was … I guess I was lonely and … and I wanted to see some people and … and … and this big goof called me and let me know he was … back. In town. And he … he was gonna come out tomorrow so we could … go over some … business things. But … but … aw, hell, look guys, I didn't know it was gonna take me so long to get here. It's only eight klicks or so. But I left the house at three."

Karl bent his face around into her field of vision. "Excuse me? Do you mean to tell me you've been out in that weather for three hours?"

"Well … yeah. But, see, I didn't know it would …"

"Wendy! You could've died!"

"Oh … no. No chance. I've got my PA. Your PA, that is."

"But you didn't use it."

"Well … no."

"Why not?"

"I … umm …" He had a point. Why hadn't she? She'd certainly been cold enough. "Uh … brain freeze?" And she gave him a faltering smile.

Karl was fighting back a bad case of the shivers. How close had she come to death? What if she'd fallen and broken a limb, or hit her head, or … something? Visions assaulted him, scenes of her lying in a drift, getting not-so-slowly covered in the blizzard, then scooped up at some later date by a piece of road equipment and anonymously deposited in a landfill …

"Karl?"

"Huh, what?"

"You okay?"

"… Yeah." But he held her just a tiny bit more tightly.

##

_** __6:30pm **_

"… and when I finally got back to the actual _road_ I remembered seeing the mailbox. All the boxes are on the east side of the road, and MacRady's drive veers off west at a pretty good angle. So that wasted a good twenty minutes right there." Wendy gave her head a rueful shake. "It's amazing how turned-around you can get when you lose a few landmarks and the rest are half-covered. Blasted skis were hard to maneuver in that tight spot, too."

Cinnamon asked, "And you never saw anyone?"

"Nope. Not a soul. Either Mr. MacRady is away somewhere, or he couldn't hear me calling from his house."

"Ayah," Quinn put in. "Thay's precious few folk as live aout thataway. An' Ewen keeps ta hisself."

Emily came trotting up and asked, "C'n I have more juice, Miz Wendy?"

"Sure, kid." The vixen took the little girl's mug and ladled up a serving of the steaming liquid from the stock pot on the pot-bellied stove. "Here ya go."

Wendy watched as Emily skipped away. _Ah, the resilience of youth. One could hardly tell she was ever hurt._

Karl held out his own mug. "More sounds good to me. Your mulled cider's fantastic."

"What am I, the maid? Your arm ain't broke."

"Indeed." He rose and slid around behind her in one supple motion, pulling a little gasp from her. "And you are correct, milady. I can serve myself."

"_Damn,_ you move fast!"

"Optical illusion."

"Uh-huh. Right." She studied him briefly and shrugged. "So, enough about me and my latest bout of stupidity. What happened to your power nap?"

"Beg pardon?"

"You were all _'I'm jet-lagged'_ and _'I can't think straight'_ and I thought you were gonna take a nap. Plus, you said you had a bunch of computer work to do."

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'. So what's up? Change your mind?"

"Umm. Kinda-sorta had it changed for me. I checked in on the balance transfers first, and found out nothing was going to happen until the European metals market opens tomorrow. That'll be in about seven and a half hours. I felt the need for a bit of decompression, so I came over here to do battle with Quinn."

"Ayah," put in the aged raccoon. "Ya put our game on hold when ya come trippin' in."

"Metals market? You mean like commodities?"

"Yeah."

"What's my money got to do with that?"

"Ah … well … it's kind of complicated. I'll be more than happy to go over all the details with you, once we get back to the Inn. It's hard to explain without net access."

"Huh. Okay. If you say so."

Cinnamon cleared her throat and said, "Wendy, I just remembered something I meant to tell you."

The vixen turned to face her friend. "Oh? About what?"

"The Evanses. They're pregnant."

"Oooo! Really? Wow, that's great!" She paused and considered and then asked, "That _is_ great, isn't it? I mean, it's not like a _'You're what?'_ situation, is it?"

"Oh, no, no, not at all. They're thrilled. Can't wait."

"Cool. Well, I'm happy for them. Do they know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

"Nope. They want to be surprised."

"Well, I'd want to have a name picked out."

"Oh … um, they, uh, … they do."

Wendy caught the slight hesitation and looked at Cinnamon narrowly. She could tell the squirrel was getting choked up about something. "And?"

"If it's a boy … Michael. Michelle, if it's a girl."

Wendy sat back in her seat for a moment, and then rubbed the side of her neck with one paw. "Ah. Yes. Well, that sounds … just about right. About like something they'd do."

"And they want me to be the child's godmother."

"Oh … whoa. That's … wow. That's a pretty big compliment."

"Yeah. Big responsibility, too."

"So, when's she due?"

"Toward the end of July."

"Ick. Third trimester in high summer?"

"Yeah. Like ya said, ick."

Karl caught Wendy's eye and asked, "You planning to stay the night in town?"

"Um … not _planning_ to, no. Or, at least I didn't plan to earlier. Might not be much choice about it now."

Quinn offered, "Can let ya have m' snowcat for tha night if ya want, git ya back ta home."

"Snowcat? Oh, that's right! Karl said you had a snowmobile."

"Ah … Quinn?"

Wendy and the raccoon both looked at Karl. He continued, "I don't know so much about putting her on that thing by herself."

Wendy gave him her best and most haughty _I'm-a-big-girl-you-know_ look and said, "I'm not wholly unfamiliar with snowmobiles, Mr. Luscus. They aren't that hard to operate."

"It's not the operation I'm worried about. How are you at two-cycle engine maintenance?"

"That's … I, um … what?"

"Quinn got that snowmobile in 1962, at an auction the Army was holding for equipment they'd used up or worn out and didn't want any more. It was built right after the Second World War, and acts like it."

The raccoon protested, "Ain't a thing wrong with Susie a little TLC don't fix."

"Uh-huh. TLC and a degree in mechanical engineering."

Wendy asked, "So it's unpredictable?"

Karl nodded. "Very."

"Oh. Enh. I suppose I could sack out here."

Cinnamon said, "There ain't much to sleep on here, 'less you wanna buy an air mattress and blow it up."

Quinn held up a paw. "Sold tha last one ta Al Jenks day 'fore yestiddy. An' I snore like a sawmill, so upstaiahs is out."

Wendy gave Cinnamon a look and asked, "Well what are you using for a bed tonight?"

"Stayin' with Elly Tab. We're gonna redecorate the area behind the main counter tomorrow. She's got a cot she keeps in her storeroom that'll do for me an' Emily."

"Oh. Okay. I wondered what the two of you were doing here. Meant to ask." Turning to Karl, she said, "That's your ATV outside. I recognized it."

"Yep. The road's not so bad between here and the Shop that six-wheel drive and some good chains can't conquer it."

She gave him a sidelong glance and smiled. "Where are _you_ sleeping tonight?"

"At home."

"Got a spare corner where a homeless vixen could curl up for a while?"

He got a thousand-meter stare for a few seconds, then gave a tiny shiver. "Y'know, on second thought, why don't I use the snowcat to take you back to the Inn? Then, if it breaks down, I can fix it. And I'll know you got there safely."

"Hmm." She considered that idea for a moment and nodded. "All right. That'll work."

Cinnamon caught Quinn's eye again. The raccoon gave a barely perceptible smirk.

Karl asked, "So, when did you want to head out?"

"Not yet, that's for sure! I haven't even been here an hour, and it's been days and _days_ since I had a good visit with anyfur. Quinn hasn't even caught me up on the gossip yet." She considered the wolverine and asked, "Are you in any particular hurry? Is there somewhere you need to be?"

"Not me. I just like to know what's going to happen and when."

"Yeah, that sounds like you." She turned to the other two adults, who were conversing in low tones, and said, "Howsabout I whip up supper? I bet I can scrounge something filling out of the grocery section over there."

Quinn sat back, gave her a nod and replied, "Help yaself."

##


	10. Chapter 3 Return Part C

**_Chapter Three – Return – Part C_**

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

_**__ Sunday 22 January 2017, 9:25pm **_

"You comfortable?"

"Yeah, right. Comfortable as I can be on this contraption. You weren't kidding. I'd _never_ try to drive this piece o' junk all the way back to the Inn on my own." She patted the seat's cracked leather. "Are you sure it'll even make it past the town limit?"

"Nope. But we'll give it the old college try."

Adjusting her parka one last time, she snuggled up against his broad back. "Drive careful, now. No jumping ditches with a passenger."

"The least of your worries, I'd say. With both of us on it I'll be surprised if we hit thirty klicks."

Dire predictions notwithstanding, they rode it back to the Inn without incident. It coughed and sputtered and backfired several times on the way, but it never stopped … until they got there. Karl pulled up under the porte cochere and thumbed the control down to idle, whereupon the motor promptly died.

"You mean to do that?"

"No. I was going to see if I could turn right around and head this infernal contraption back to Quinn's." He got off and raised the engine cover, then pulled a small toolbox out of a compartment beside it. "Guess I'll have to mess with it a while first."

"Uh-uh. First, you're coming inside with me."

That earned her a calculating gaze. "Why?"

Cocking an eyebrow, she chuckled and asked, "What's that look for? What'd I do now?"

"I suspect an ulterior motive."

"Geez, you're suspicious! Can't a girl invite a friend in for coffee without having some dark design in store?"

"I don't know. Can she?"

She crossed her arms. "Well, if you're going to be like that, I'll just keep the whole cheesecake to myself."

"… Excuse me?"

"Got a blueberry cheesecake in the fridge and some Kona blend ready to perk. But if you'd rather fiddle with your ol' snowmobile than …"

He let the cover slam shut and set the toolbox on the seat. "My most abject apologies, milady. Your humble servant." And he executed a graceful bow.

"That's more like it. C'mon."

It wasn't exactly warm in the outer halls. With an eye toward conserving her supply of propane, Wendy had cut the thermostat back to ten degrees in much of the rambling house. While it was true that her arrangement with the supplier meant she'd never have to pay for it, there was the small problem of his getting it out to the Inn at all. Free fuel did her little good if it was sitting in a tanker truck in Burlington.

But warmth invited them into the spacious kitchen. Wendy went straight to the coffee pot and got it going. Karl removed his coat and hung it on a peg. "Anything I can do to help?"

"You can snag the cheesecake outta the fridge."

"Which one?"

"The big one."

In a few minutes they were ensconced on the sofa in the library. It took Karl only a minute to turn the banked coals in the fireplace into a cheery blaze, and he and the vixen proceeded to do away with the cheesecake.

She asked, "So where'd you go?"

"Where'd I … oh, you mean over in Europe?"

"Yep. I didn't figure you'd want to talk about it much in front of the others."

"I suppose." He took a large mouthful of the cold treat and chewed thoughtfully. "This is divine."

"I agree. Where'd you go?"

He chuckled. "Knowing you, I should probably save myself a deal of grief and just spill it."

"That would be your wisest course, yes."

"Okay. To Germany first, then to Belgium, then to Poland, and lastly to France." He forked in another bite.

She waited several seconds and then frowned. "I'll be more than happy to beat up on you if you'd rather."

He was all innocence. "What?"

"Details! Give me some background!"

"You know, you get the cutest little groove in your forehead when you …"

She threw a pillow at him, which he deflected with an elbow while juggling his plate on one knee. The second one caught him on the snout, though.

"All right! All right! I'll give. Just don't make me drop my cheesecake."

"No tricks, no prevarications, and no half-answers."

"Yes'm. I followed his trail to Berlin. Dangerous place. Riots on a daily basis."

"Yeah, I hear about that on the news."

"He'd been staying at an old hotel. Historic-type place. The gang he'd been working with burned it down, I think to cover up his murder."

"Oh. Huh. Yeah, dangerous."

"Yeah. But I ran into … an old friend. We teamed up for a bit and dug out a pile of info on the gang."

"An old friend?"

"Well … more of an acquaintance, really. Ex-coworker."

"Old colleague?"

"Something like that."

"You worked for the Company, didn't you?"

"… Say what?"

"The CIA. Or some other one of those alphabet soup agencies."

"How do you arrive at that conclusion?"

"I see you aren't denying it." She gave a satisfied nod. "I've been thinking about your shady past that you're oh-so careful not to tell me about." She forestalled his objection with a firm paw. "This is not to say that you've let anything slip, not anything substantive anyway. But I'm not stupid; I can decipher the blanks. You're a G-man of some sort. Or were."

He regarded her darkly for a few moments and shrugged. "I don't _have_ to tell you _anything_, you know. My history really isn't any of your concern."

"No, I guess it's not … except for the fact that you're my friend. See, by nature I'm really not all that nosy …"

She paused when he barked a laugh, and reconsidered her position.

"Well … okay, maybe I am. But that isn't the point. I don't like surprises, not inconvenient ones, and if you've got things you're ashamed of, things you're trying to hide, then I don't want to … react badly … if I, well …" She made a brief search for the right phrase and settled for, "… you know, if I find out about them."

"And how would you find out about these _'dark secrets'_ if I don't tell you? Do you have a source of information on me?"

"No."

"Have you stopped to consider that perhaps there are some things you would be better off not knowing?"

"Not really, no."

"I think you should."

"Now you're making it sound all creepy and stuff."

"Some of my background _**is**_ 'all creepy and stuff'."

"Oh. Umm …"

"Look, Wendy, I'll concede your point. I've done some things I'm not proud of. But I've done a lot _more_ things of which I am _intensely_ proud. It's just that … okay, put it this way: in that line of work, one tends to make a lot of enemies."

"Oh?"

"Yes. And they are not all dead."

"Oh."

He let her digest that for a minute, and then asked, "Can we just leave it at that?"

"… Yeah. I guess so."

"Good. So, anyway, I had to take a little side trip to Brussels to check out some leads …"

##

_** __Monday 23 January 2017, 12:10am **_

"… and that's about the size of it. After the copper futures deal concludes, and I collect on the short, it'll just be a matter of paperwork. You'll have access to your money in three weeks, give or take a couple of days."

"That is incredibly good news." She batted her lashes at him a few times, clasped her paws together in front of her bosom, and said, "Mah heeero!"

"Oh, please. It's not that big a deal when you consider …"

"It's a big deal to me. I told you how shaky my finances were, how my biggest client hasn't paid me a dime. And now you tell me I've got better than a quarter million coming in three weeks?" She scooted over next to him and took his paw in hers. "You're a lifesaver. Or an angel. I don't really care which. Either way, I think you're an ace."

Karl's constitution was proof against practically any biological, and most toxins, even the synthetics. But his antibodies and filtering systems did not recognize naturally-occurring hormones or scents as anything dangerous, and so they did nothing about them. Wendy's aroma had been wreathing his head for the last three hours, a sensation he both enjoyed and feared. He knew, intellectually, that her pheromones would cloud his mind, would affect his judgment … but at first it was no bother, really. Nothing he couldn't handle. _Like an alcoholic with his nose in a snifter of brandy_, a little voice cautioned him.

Now, though, he couldn't make himself draw away.

She turned that ten-kilowatt smile on him and said, "I wish you'd let me show you how truly grateful I am."

He knew exactly what she meant, and went suddenly rigid.

She moved her paws lightly up his arm and pressed her cheek against his bicep. "I know. You think you need to leave. You think you can't trust me to keep the relationship casual. Or maybe you think you can't trust yourself."

"W-Wendy, I …"

"Shhhhhh … I know. Believe me, I've been there. But Karl, this is different. I honestly feel like I should repay you for all the effort you went through. I know for a fact no one else on this round world would have done it. It was really special, really thoughtful. And I'd like to give you something special in return."

"I … but … see, we're … well, just friends."

"Well … friends, yes. Special friends. Friends with privileges."

He was drowning. This was harder than the last time, after the hayride. That time, she'd been more flippant, as if she had just expected him to fall in line. But now … now she was simply being herself, genuine, persuasive; advancing her cause with a controlled but unmistakable passion. Her gaze locked on his, she raised herself on one knee and slowly brought their mouths together.

_Help!_

_Shut up! Just enjoy it, you idiot!_

_Somebody toss me a life preserver!_

_Kiss her back!_

He did. It was long, and slow, and deep, and it left him breathing hard when she pulled away.

She placed her paws under his chin and touched the tip of his nose with hers. "You really are a great kisser. You know that?"

He let his head fall back against the sofa for a second and closed his eyes, panting.

She stood and went to the fire, added a log, and poked it up. He watched her movements, fascinated. When the flames crackled again, she came back to the sofa and knelt in front of him. "Karl, would it bother you all that much to stay the night?"

He didn't trust himself to answer.

"I don't want to pressure you. I wouldn't want to be pressured, either. But I would really appreciate it – really enjoy it – if you would. And I think you'd enjoy it, too."

He stared at her as the seconds drew out, trying to form a coherent thought, trying to put his jumbled feelings into words. What he finally said was, "I'm … sorry. I can't."

A light veil of sadness fell over her eyes. She nodded resignedly and stood. "I thought you'd say that. Pity." She held out a paw, which he took hesitantly. She pulled, and he stood. "Well, if you're going, you better git. It's late." She walked to the door, opened it, turned and gave him a look he couldn't define, and then glided out, leaving the door open.

Karl trotted out into the Main Hall and made a beeline for the foyer. He didn't stop to work on the snowmobile. Instead he grabbed up pawfuls of snow and mashed them into his face, running down the drive to the road, breaking through and bogging down, but pushing on anyway.

About two klicks from the Inn, he felt it was safe to let go with a tormented howl. He snowplowed his way back into town, got in his ATV, and sped home.

**Here Ends Chapter Three**


	11. Chapter 4 Closing the Gap

**_Chapter Four – Closing the Gap_**

##

**I do not think there is any thrill that can go  
through the human heart like that felt by  
****the inventor as he sees some creation  
of the brain unfolding to success...  
****Such emotions make a man forget  
food, sleep, friends, love, everything.**

_**-Nikola Tesla**_

##

_** Monday 23 January 2017, 4:00pm **_

Icicles hung in thick rows down each side of the Fixit Shop, their lower tips angled with the direction of the prevailing winds. Some nearly reached the ground; a few seemed to have broken off, perhaps from their own weight, or perhaps from the violence of the recent storms. The latest blow had passed through a few hours earlier, leaving a mostly-clear sky and three-meter snowdrifts in its wake. Since one such pile nearly obscured the front of the Shop, Karl had elected to come in from the garage around back.

His bed upstairs remained empty and cold. The refrigerator, had anyone opened it to look, would have given the impression that it was being defrosted. Karl had transferred its entire burden of food to the sub-basement, and consumed most of it in the last fourteen hours. He wasn't a nervous eater. He just needed to replenish the reserves he'd used up after snowplowing the eight klicks from Wendy's place back to town.

Now he was doing what he could to take his mind off what had happened between them, but his level of success in that regard could be described charitably as spotty. Fortunately it didn't interfere with his work. Attention to detail was crucial, and he knew it.

This was the same spacious room that housed his secret arsenal, where he had outfitted himself before going after Martin's kidnappers, and it occupied a footprint considerably larger than the Shop above. The room's center was currently filled with Karl's "project", and it was here that he focused his efforts. Complete were the superstructure, sheathing, and main propulsion units, as were the majority of the subsystems. The items he'd picked up in Boston were all modified and installed. Electronics, hydraulics, displays, sensors, communication … everything checked out. He could do field testing with it as is. But fairly late in the game, he'd gotten an idea for a sort of "gee-whiz" improvement, and had been working on that aspect of the device ever since.

Along one wall Karl had installed a lab-grade workbench, complete with downdraft hoods, various light sources, burners, sinks, and whatever else a competent chemist might desire. Lined up in neat rows on the work surface stood several score microfluidic reactors of decidedly custom design. Karl had invented these devices back in the 1970's during his tenure as the R&D director for Westmon-Hightower, a multinational conglomerate that produced everything from camera film to fertilizer. He held three patents for the reactors, or at least he had until he'd decided to drop out of sight. Over the past few years he had tweaked their designs until he could get the miniature factories to produce small quantities of practically anything. The patent office wouldn't even recognize them now.

He carefully extracted the contents of two of the tiny devices into a pair of thin vials and carried them over to a test bench at the end of the room where he mounted the vials on a massive stand in a reaction chamber. He hooked up several wires to the mixing device, closed the heavy door, and threw the locking bolts. Then he positioned an ultra-high-speed camera in front of the small sapphire view port, and moved several steps away to a pendant control.

Donning a pair of welder's goggles, he said to himself, "Okay, Karl, ol' buddy, ol' pal, let's see if your calculations are worth anything." His thumb depressed a button.

The camera was set to begin recording a fifth of a second before initiation. Karl had a total of perhaps two hundred milligrams of the liquids to work with, and he wanted to make sure that he didn't miss any part of the reaction. The electric current arrived at the end of the activation wires, a tiny solenoid shot into the end of each vial, and the fluids were atomized into the glass ball between them.

Now, what a lot of people don't seem to realize is that explosions are not instantaneous. They take time, and a lot depends on the speed with which a particular reactant burns. Karl had been working with these compounds for six or seven weeks, and had managed to slow the rate of burn considerably. So the explosion lasted for almost half a second.

When the sensor array indicated that it was safe to do so, Karl walked back to the chamber and peered in through the view port. The test stand was glowing a dull red near where the vials had stood, and the walls were deeply scorched. He fiddled with the camera briefly and watched for a few minutes as the explosion replayed on the monitor.

Noting the maximum temperatures recorded in various spots in the chamber, he did a quick calculation of yield, nodding in satisfaction. Mumbling, "That should do the trick," he went back to the row of micro-factories and made a few adjustments.

After setting the others to duplicate the efforts of his prototypes, Karl rolled a large air filtration device over next to the machine, positioned it near the front, and turned it on. Then he donned a compact re-breather, picked up a jar filled with a clear, waxy substance, and grabbed a selection of wool buffing pads. Moving to the long machine's nose, he lovingly ran a paw down its sleek side. Then, dipping one of the wool pads into the jar, he got to work putting a high finish on the bright white surface.

##

_** Thursday 26 January, 8:00pm **_

Captain Robert Todd looked up from the report he was reading. "Can we go over that sequence one more time please? Just to get Amos up to speed, now that he's back."

The canine nodded in agreement. "Yes, I'd appreciate that."

"Sure," Drifter replied. "He slipped past our cordon and got to the Cressels' place on January second. He stayed in their house for three days and ate practically everything they had." Drifter slid a paper over to the Lieutenant. "That's a good photo of the thing he put on their floor."

Amos picked up the oversized photograph and studied it. "Weird. Looks like a shaman's wheel."

"A what?"

"Shaman's wheel. It's a magical symbol. Supposed to protect whoever's inside it."

"Protect him from what?"

Amos shrugged. "Whatever the conjurer is trying to contact." He pointed to the picture. "These glyphs he put around the outside …"

"What about 'em?"

"I think I've seen something like that before." He frowned in concentration for a few moments, finally shaking his head. "I'll have to do some digging."

"If ya want to. Think it'd help find him?"

"Eh. I dunno." He traced one of the symbols with a finger. "Funny looking. What did he draw them with?"

Drifter spoke up. "They ain't drawn. He made 'em outta the Cressels."

"… What?"

"He cut those squiggles and such outta their hides and laid 'em out like that."

Amos pulled a face, his nose curling in nausea. "That main circle doesn't look like skin."

"Nope. Intestine."

Lieutenant Phillips dropped the photo to the table and turned away, taking several deep breaths.

Drifter chuckled quietly and asked, "You okay?"

"I'll be fine."

"Don't look so good."

"Don't worry." He stiffened his muzzle. "Please continue."

"Sure. Mr. Cressels' boss missed him at work and sent a fur around to check up on him. Lucky for that guy, he went armed. Came face to face with our chap and unloaded on him. I guess the wolf must have had a belly full of that kind of thing from us because he hauled ass outta there. Jumped over the back fence – and keep in mind, that's nearly a three-meter fence – and high-tailed it into the woods."

Amos threw up a paw. "He has _**got**_ to be some kind of cyborg or something! The things he does … I mean, furs just can't _**do**_ that!"

"He did, though. Eye-witness and physical evidence says so."

A voice from the door said, "Maybe he's _magically_ enhanced."

The three officers turned. Cap said, "Hey, Michelle."

"Hey, yourself," She eased over to his desk. "What do you think of that theory?"

"Same thing I thought the first time you said that. Load of hogwash."

"And yet, what's that phrase you just used? 'Physical evidence says so' was it?"

"Just because he likes to get artistic with his victims' innards doesn't mean …"

"You got a better notion?"

"No. You know I don't. But I'm not about to toss out a bunch of cockamamie, black-helicopter crap until I have something to back it up, either."

Michelle picked up the photo, caught Cap's eye and flipped it his way. "And you think this doesn't back up my idea?"

"Not really. We don't even know for sure what it is."

Amos asked, "So where'd he turn up next?"

"Interstate 81, north of Watertown, New York. Thursday, the twelfth, in broad daylight, just before noon." Drifter passed him another photo, this one of a wrecked sedan. "This lady hit him. Said he jumped off an embankment and landed right smack in front of her. She knocked him nearly twenty meters down the road and into the bushes, and as you can see, she ended up on the guard rail. EMTs got there in under four minutes. Couple of truckers stopped to help. One of 'em went over to where he was layin' and tried to check to see how bad he was hurt, but the stench drove him away. Said the guy stank like nothin' he'd ever smelled before."

Michelle nodded vigorously and said, "He's right."

"So the med-techs got there and went to get him, and he was gone."

"There's some more of that 'physical evidence', Cap."

He gave her a pained look.

Amos prompted, "And after that? There was a third encounter, wasn't there?"

"And how. Just south of Lake Placid, little place called Averyville. You know all this crazy weather we've been having this year?"

"Tons of snow, yeah. What of it?"

"The resorts are booming. There ain't an unbooked room within half a day's drive of any ski slope. And there's a bunch of bed-n-breakfast places around Averyville. Our perp found one."

"Ah-huh. And I don't imagine he turned out to be a paying customer."

"Nope. There was a young feline couple there on honeymoon, and the owner, a forty-eight year old female black bear. He killed 'em. Broke 'em up bad. Ate most of the young lady. Yesterday, a neighbor went over because he hadn't seen anyfur outside in a couple days and tried to get somebody to come to the door. When nobody did, he peeked in a window and saw part of the mess. Ran and called the cops. Pawful of state patrol cruisers showed up and surrounded the place. When they broke the door down, all hell broke loose. The perp messed up three of 'em; didn't manage to kill 'em but it wasn't for lack of tryin'. Two are in intensive care. But between the eight officers involved, they got off fifty-seven rounds of nine-millimeter jacketed hollow points. Best we can tell they hit him at least twenty-nine times."

Amos stared at the old cat for a moment and said, "Twenty-nine? He took twenty-nine rounds and still got away?"

"Yup. Jumped off into the woods; left a trail of blood for a good distance, but that finally stopped. They followed his tracks until the land got too rough to travel. We showed up here this morning, and if his pattern hasn't changed, which we don't expect, he'll be coming this way, north or south plus or minus ten klicks of Elizabethtown, before too long."

"How many operatives you got on watch?"

"Counting the National Guard? A hundred and fifty-eight. Binoculars, I-R detectors, motion sensors. If he moves through here, we'll know it."

The canine nodded in approval. "Just wish I could've been more help."

"Don't feel bad, Lieutenant," said Michelle. "None of us could have anticipated how … how durable this guy would be." She shot a look at Cap and then shook her head. "And you know what?"

"What?"

"I cut off his thumb the last time we met."

"Yeah. I saw it."

"According to the troopers, he had both thumbs when they tangled."

Amos didn't say anything to that right away. He looked back at the reports and the photos that Drifter had been laying out as he talked. After a few moments he looked up at the rest of them. "Okay then. Suppose we find him. What are we going to shoot him with this time? Bullets don't seem very effective."

Cap held up a finger. "Every team has at least one National Guard soldier armed with a plasma rifle. Range of better than half a klick, and it'll put a hole big enough to step through in just about anything. If he can walk away from that, my official recommendation will be to nuke him."

Amos Phillips nodded. "I'll go along with that."

##

_** elsewhere **_

The fever was back. He could feel the heat on his skin.

A trembling paw pulled snow in under the conifer where he lay curled, out of sight, hidden by the thickly-hanging needles.

He knew he must rest, knew he couldn't risk being wounded again.

He scooped the snow into his mouth and swallowed.

The Master was angry.

He would be good.

He would get the Master some food.

But first he had to heal, had to give the bone in his leg time to knit, the shattered ribs time to mend, the shredded organs time to close and reform.

The Master was good to him.

The Master had not punished him.

Those three in the last building had been a _good_ meal for the Master, yes. Their fear was vivid, intense, palpable as they died, their life essences finally being sucked away through the glowing black ooze that formed the conduit to the Master.

But now the Master was hungry again … the Master would want to feed soon.

He scooped in and ate some more snow.

Pain was his constant companion. The lances of agony, the dull aches, the sharp burning coils in his gut combined to sap him of the supernatural energy he had come to rely on.

He had to rest.

But he felt that the Master would not allow him to rest much longer.

Because the Master was hungry.

##


	12. Chapter 5 Paydirt

**_Chapter Five – Paydirt_**

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

**I'm a great believer in luck  
****and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.**

_**-Thomas Jefferson**_

##

_** Monday 23 January 2017, 4:00pm **_

Capra used his teeth to twist the cap off another Heineken, leaned back in the heavy leather swivel chair he'd scrounged, and reflected on the value of good, old-fashioned legwork when it came to tracking and surveillance.

He considered this as good a position to be in as he'd enjoyed in a while, and he'd been patting himself on the back ever since. His base of operations, a two-story duplex and sometime boarding house on the southeastern fringe of New Haven Junction, was owned by a family that live in Bristol. They managed it remotely through a properties company located all the way over in Barre. To his left there was an ancient, empty storage building boasting a 'Condemned' sign; an abandoned garden plot loitered on the right. The anonymity was perfect. Capra had arranged to rent out both halves of the duplex, using two entirely fictitious names, and slipped in under the locals' highly-efficient social radar. No one had met him, no one knew him, and he planned to keep it that way.

Of the seven monitor systems he'd packed in, he had three going now. He'd installed the first of the cameras near the Fixit Shop just west of New Haven Junction the previous Thursday night, the second day after his arriving in this tiny little corner of Vermont. He got the angle he wanted, being able to cover the front, the right, and a bit of the rear of the building. Then Wayne Nutu placed the second unit two nights later. It afforded them a view of that section of Main Street where it intersected with Highway 7.

Around oh-dark-thirty Sunday morning Foxworth had taken advantage of the sudden onset of the blizzard to ensconce the third camera in a good location inside the local general store. Then the team holed up in their dilapidated headquarters to wait it out. However, just as noon rolled around, Capra's monitor tracked a massive, six-wheeled ATV as it pulled up in front of the Fixit Shop, and none other than their Mr. Beorn Gulo hopped out. The shaggy canine wasn't _at all_ sanguine about that conveyance, which reminded him forcefully of an armored troop transport. He could think of a double-dozen nasty surprises that could easily fit within its bulky envelope.

The atmosphere around the monitor was exceedingly tense until they figured out what the wolverine was doing – which, as it turned out, didn't seem to be much. He stayed in his Shop for a little over two hours before leaving to thread his way through the driving snow to the self-same general store they'd just bugged. Once there, he seemed quite chummy with an attractive squirrel femme and her daughter, who were visiting with the aged raccoon proprietor. Gulo chatted with them for the rest of the afternoon, and he and the raccoon eventually settled down to a board game by the wood stove. Not long after that another figure came on the scene, a petite vixen who gave ample evidence of being _very_ familiar with Gulo. Capra suspected immediately that it might be that dead ringer for Rho, and he wasn't disappointed. As soon as she doffed her arctic gear, Foxworth, who had met Phoebe Reynard on a few occasions, gaped at her.

"Capra! That's Rho!"

"Dat's whut I tol' Raj, only he says she ain't."

They watched and listened. The little girl had called her 'Miz Wendy' as soon as she arrived. Wayne shortly went to work on his database and within twelve minutes a dossier on one Wendy April Wylde was scrolling down his screen. The three furs read it silently. At length Capra shrugged and remarked, "So she ain't Rho, looks like."

Foxworth said, "Maybe they're related?"

"It'd be a dist'nt relation. Pheebs was a only child. So was both her parents."

"Still," observed Wayne, "this is a helluva coincidence, Gulo ending up with somebody who looks _exactly_ like his old flame."

Foxworth asked, "How do you know they're an item?"

Capra pointed at the monitor where the vixen was cuddled up on Gulo's lap. "If dey ain't, dey're doing a damn fine job of actin'."

They continued to watch and listen as the evening wore on, taking copious notes and adding reams of information to their database. To all appearances, the little group in the store had a high old time, just a few friends making the best of it during a bad storm. Around nine-thirty Gulo and Ms. Wylde left on a decrepit snowmobile. And that was that.

. . . . . All of which led to this moment. Capra downed his brew, pulled a com unit out of a pocket, and thumbed the '1'. A few seconds later, Hemanth Rajid replied, "Capra?"

"Da one an' only."

"Is there a problem?"

"Nah."

"Ah. And your operation is still under control?"

"Ya know it, boyo. He got back t' dat shop o' his around t'ree dis mornin'. Poked 'is snout out long enough t' get 'is mail 'bout, oh, ten-toity, an' I ain't seen hide nor hair since."

"You are positive he is still in there?"

"Fuckin'-A. He's been boinin' up da com lines wit' dat satellite fer da las' t'ree hours. I ain't no Turing expert, but I know when somebuddy's doin' 'is own keyboardin'."

"Very good." Rajid paused, and then asked, "So to what do I owe the honor of this call?"

"Jus' felt like gettin' in anuddah good gloat."

The mongoose's muzzle gave a wry twist of humor. "Are you not afraid you'll alert him to your presence if you make too much use of your communications equipment?"

"Ho! Dat's rich. He can't read dis setup. Nobuddy can."

"Just be sure. It is your life in the balance if he discovers you."

"Eh. Mebbe. But fer my money he ain't da same killin' machine we all knew an' loved."

"Yes, well, that remains to be seen, doesn't it?"

"I'll let ya know."

"You do that. I will be departing for dinner soon. Barring a change in status, do not feel it necessary to call me until your regular reporting slot tomorrow."

Capra snorted and broke the connection.

But Hemanth Rajid didn't leave right away. He sat at his desk, muzzle propped contemplatively on the back of one paw, and read over the team's reports once again. There was much cause for caution, no matter what side of the issue he found himself on.

They'd gotten their first real break even as Rajid had been finishing up his briefing at the ISB on the third. Gulo had sent out several high-density data streams that had lasted long enough for their tracking software to pinpoint the source to within a few kilometers. The infiltration team immediately began a surreptitious canvass of the area in and around New Haven Junction. Capra had not the slightest intention of confronting the wolverine directly, going instead for an extremely roundabout approach. He got Katherine Malama set up with a worn 'prom photo' featuring her and a younger Gulo and had her make a couple of inquiries around town. _(Be-Be told me that if I was ever in the area I ought to look him up, but I forgot to write down his address!) _ She showed the picture to the sturdy femme feline who ran a local diner and had struck gold instantly. Ellie Tabb thought it was so sweet that her friend _(You say you called him Be-Be? What a cute nickname!)_ had an old flame trying to find him. With a sparkle in her eye she gave Katherine directions to the Fixit Shop, and sent her on her way with well-wishes and a free cookie. And although the husky femme had indeed driven out toward the Shop, she never so much as twitched a whisker its way as she motored past.

The weather had been kind until very recently. Capra made his first physical appearance in the area on the eleventh. By then the team had determined that Gulo – who they discovered was going by the name Karl Luscus these days – had left town on some kind of extended trip. No one knew when he'd return. No one seemed overtly curious about where he'd gone or what he might be doing. They knew he'd be back when he was finished with his business; he always came back. As it transpired, the owner and operator of the premier repair facility in three counties was occasionally prone to fits of idiosyncratic behavior. But, because he was such a helpful sort, so easy-going (!), so knowledgeable with any piece of equipment he might get to work on, and so respectful of the locals, nofur thought anything of it. They were just glad to have him around.

The rest of the background Gulo had established was just as confusing. He'd been parked right here in Outer Nowhere for the last six and a half years, maintaining as low a profile as possible consistent with his being a small business owner. He joined a local church through profession of faith (which made Capra laugh out loud) in 2013. He _had_ managed to keep his likeness out of all public records, which didn't really surprise any of them. Also unsurprising was that he didn't have a significant other in his life, at least none that he acknowledged. His closest personal affiliation seemed to be with a family of dormice. He had taken on an apprentice of sorts, one Martin O'Musca, who had made the papers last year by intervening on behalf of a mixed-species femme, and fighting off her attackers. Mr. O'Musca had attributed his proficiency in the martial arts to the training he'd received from his employer.

This profile stood at marked odds with what Rajid knew of Beorn's tenure with Omicron Platoon. The fur had always been a technician of the highest grade, and applied his talents to every aspect of their missions, but he could be infuriatingly brittle. The most innocuous comment could set him off. And, though fiercely loyal to his teammates, he could kill with an efficient detachment that the mongoose had always found a little disturbing. He _enjoyed_ fighting, and would come up with an excuse to do so if things got too quiet between assignments. More than one fur had ended up in the base infirmary because of his lethal combination of strength, skill, and temper.

The two sections of this enigma didn't match up, and Rajid couldn't fathom how such a monumental change could have been wrought in Gulo's character. Either he was a consummate actor – and Rajid was confident that the fur he remembered had not the patience for such an extended run – or there was a major piece of the puzzle they'd overlooked. Either way, he had no intention of making contact until he was reasonably sure it could be done with a modicum of safety. If it took six weeks of observation – or six months – so be it.

##

**You can get more with a kind word and a gun  
****than you can with a kind word alone.**

_**- Al Capone **_

##

_** Tuesday 24 January 2017, 7:00pm **_

Starr took another sip of his club soda as he listened to the tale being spun for his benefit. If this information was legit, it could be worth quite a wad of cash, which was making it more difficult by the minute to keep up this professional façade.

The big canine who sat on the other side of the booth continued, "I tell ya, Inspector, it don't get no weirder'n that, now does it? Ain't never seen nofur run s'damn fast in all my life. Up 'n' down, up this street 'n' down that. Big ol' black thing. Wudd'n sure I didn' dream it all, first time." He tossed off the rest of his rum-and-cola, set the glass down with a dull bang, and belched. "Scuse me."

"No problem, sir. Would you like another?"

"Sure!"

He signaled a waiter, who brought over a fourth mug of the mixture. Starr flipped him a ten and waved him off. "Mr. Atcheson, I appreciate – your _country_ appreciates – your helping us locate this criminal."

"Yeah, sure thing. He come runnin' by my place, humpin' it like a scalded cat. Up one street and …"

"Yes, sir. That's what you said. Did you see which way he went?"

"Headed west. I got me a real 'curious' goin' and watched for 'im, an' sure 'nough, he come back, hell fer leather. Went back by in a big truck few minutes later, haulin' ass west. Tore outta here on State like th' devil 's after 'im." He drained half his mug and sighed in pleasure. Looking at the dark liquid splash around as he turned it this way and that, he said, "Sure is a good drink."

"So you are certain he went west?"

"Yep. That's what Porter said, too."

"Porter? Who is Porter?"

"Guard. Friend o' mine. Works up to th' courthouse. He talked with th' fur himself."

"I … see. And what would Mr. Porter's full name be?"

"Walter Eustace Porter. Used ta call 'im 'Useless' when we was kids 'cause that sounds like Eustace, but that ain't rilly 'is name, ya know. Corporal now, I think. Helluva nice guy. Been a guard up there for a couple years. He'll help ya out. Can't think why I didn't think to tell ya 'fore now."

"Yes. That would have been helpful." He stood and picked up his overcoat, shrugging it on over his Homeland Security vest. "I will need to speak with Mr. Porter."

"Helluva nice guy! He's a guard, works up to th' …"

"Yes, the courthouse. You told me. Thank you." And he slipped out of the bar and over to his vehicle. Once inside he extracted a compact com unit and hit a button. The unit beeped and voice said, "Starr?"

"Yeah, Popper. Got a lead. Gamma spoke with a guard at the courthouse by name of Walter E. Porter. This Porter may know his location."

"I'll get Snapfinger on it."

"Well tell him not to get carried away this time till we have the info we need. Pigeon's no good to us if he's pigeon pie."

"I had a talk with him."

Starr nodded. "Great. I'll keep digging, then. You'll let Hamad know?"

"Of course."

"Right. Starr out."

##


	13. Chapter 6 Near Misses Part A

_**Chapter Six – Near Misses – Part A**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

**People travel to wonder at the height of mountains,  
****at the huge waves of the sea,  
****at the long courses of rivers,  
****at the vast compass of the ocean,  
****at the circular motion of the stars …  
****and they pass by themselves without wondering.**

_**-Saint Augustine**_

##

_** Thursday 26 January 2017, 1:20pm **_

With a cheerful chime that was _really_ starting to bug Karl, the front door of the Fixit Shop admitted yet another customer. The nondescript canine walked up and took his place at the end of the line.

"So ya think it's dead?"

Karl dragged his attention back to the fellow in front of him, and the tiller he'd brought in. "Just at first glance I'd say so. I'll have to take it apart to be sure, but I think your drive shaft bearings seized up."

"Ayah. 'Fraid o' that." He waved a diffident paw. "If ya can fix it, I'd be obliged. But if not, I won't be needin' it back. Martha's been on me since last summer ta get a new un."

"Right. I'll let you know either way, Ed."

Ed made his way to the door and the next customer stepped up to the counter. As Karl was removing the tiller and setting it on the floor behind the counter, he noticed another fur coming in as Ed left. This one was dragging a snow blower.

Karl sighed and pasted a smile on his muzzle. "Hey, Kurt. What can I do for you?"

"Warm weather we had last couple days done melted th' snow on th' hill behind th' haouse. Tried ta flood m' basement. Now I think this sump pump might be toast."

"Are you still flooded?"

"Nope. Had a backup. Little thing, but it worked. Just need this 'n fixed 'fore the spring thaw."

"We can handle that. Here's your ticket."

"I thankee." He tipped his cap and headed for the door.

And they kept coming. The situation at the Shop didn't really change until late afternoon.

##

_** 2:45pm **_

"Okay, Elly, this is the last flat."

The cat looked over the array of American Crisps under the plastic and did a quick calculation. "Ayah. By my count that'd be two hundred, even. Ought ta do me fer a bit."

"Yeah, listen Elly, I'm sorry I let you run out."

The older fur waved off Wendy's apology. "Couldn't be helped. This awful weather done tossed ever'body's schedules out tha winda."

"Yup. Not just schedules, either. I've been going stir-crazy, knockin' around in that big ol' house by myself."

"Coulda come over t' here. Been open most days, an' by m'self as well. Coulda used tha company."

"Well, see, that was kinda my problem. I didn't have any way to get out until very recently. The county seems to have forgotten there's a road in front of the Inn, and I don't have a snowmobile. The one time I tried it, on skis, I just about froze."

"Hm. Can see how that'd be. Been right frosty lately."

"I'm no good at it, either. Skied from my place to Quinn's, and it took me three hours." She shuddered and stated, "I _won't_ be trying _that_ again any time soon."

Elly placed the cookies in a storage cabinet and got out her checkbook. "Makin' these fer those bears that run The Tandoori now, ain't ya?"

"Uh-huh. Started about a month or so ago. They don't buy nearly as many as you do, though."

"Havin' any trouble keepin' up with demand?"

"No. Capacity isn't an issue. I am getting low on a few ingredients, though. First thing in the morning I'm heading up to Burlington."

"Oh? What's in Burlington?"

"_The Spice of Life_. It's a warehouse store."

"Ayah. Heard of it. Big place?"

"Huge. They've got every kind of herb or spice, fresh or dried, whole or ground, that anyfur's ever used to cook with. Most of their business is web-based, but walk-ins are welcome, too."

"And ya goin' up there in person?"

"I am."

The cat chuckled. "Aimin' ta get aout fer a change o' scenery?"

Wendy grinned. "Guilty as charged."

"Don't blame ya none. I'd visit tha place m'self if I could get away from tha diner … and if they weren't _quite_ so proud o' their stuff."

"You're right about that. The prices can be a little scary. I don't know many dishes where you'd just _have_ to use, say, Vietnamese vanilla as opposed to the Mexican stuff. One's six or eight times the price of the other, and the taste isn't that different."

"I wouldn't be knowin' anythin' abaout that sort o' thing. Leave all such truck up ta tha gourmet types like you."

"Eh. Usually it's not so much about the ingredients – although they _can_ be important – as it is about how you use them."

"Don't know much abaout that either."

Wendy dimpled. "Well for someone who claims not to know about cooking, your diner certainly sees its fair share of traffic."

"Plain folk 'round here. They like plain cookin'. Heh. 'Cept fer these cookies o' yours." A thought occurred to Elly and she snapped her fingers. "You're leavin' in tha mornin'?"

"By first light, if not sooner."

"Goin' ta be away long?"

"I'll be back by Sunday around noon. Why do you ask?"

"Just wonderin' if you're plannin' on droppin' by ta see the Vison girl get hitched Sunday afternoon."

That stopped Wendy cold. She stared at the wall, not saying anything.

"You feelin' okay, Wendy?"

She gave a little shake and shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah."

"Is that _'Yeah, I feel okay'_ or _'Yeah, I'm goin' ta tha weddin'_?"

"… I don't think I'll be going."

Elly studied the vixen briefly before stating, "She asked after ya week or two ago."

"Did she?"

"Ayah. Didn't she work fer ya fer a while?"

"Yeah. She did."

"You two have a fallin' aout?"

Wendy gave her a sidelong glance while thinking about her answer.

Elly put up a paw. "None o' my business I reckon. Just seemed a might odd."

"Odd. Yeah, I guess." Wendy leaned on the counter and considered what Elly had told her, then said, "She'd only known this joker for about eight or ten days when she agreed to marry him. I, uh … let her know what I thought of that."

"Did ya naow?"

"I did. And I wasn't very subtle."

"Well I'd prob'ly said tha same. Them whirlwind romance-type things don't hardly ever turn aout good. That was cause fer some comment 'round tha county, let me tell ya."

"Elly … have you ever _met_ this guy she hauled back from Mexico?"

"Nope, not me. I hear tell he's a smooth operator o' tha first mint, though. Charmed all o' Ellen's relatives til naow they think he's tha best thing since runnin' water."

"Humph. Smooth enough to get Ellen to fall for him in record time. I really hope she knows what she's doing. But honestly … I doubt it."

"You thinkin' there's somethin' wrong with him?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm just … a little jealous. I guess."

"Ah, don't worry about it. You'll meet somefur decent 'fore too long. They're aout there, even if they are aoutnumbered."

Wendy had to mull that over a second. That wasn't the kind of jealous she'd meant, but she decided to let Elly think so. "Maybe you're right. Actually I thought I'd make the rounds of the nightclubs while I'm in Burlington. I figure it can't hurt."

Elly gave a low laugh. "Ya know, lot o' folks say you'll never meet anyone worth a nickel thataway. Trollin' bars an' clubs an' such. But I gotta tell ya, that's how I met my husband. An' we had near twenty happy years together, God rest his soul."

Wendy's ears perked up. "I didn't know you'd been married."

"Oh, yah. Stephen was fresh aout tha Navy. Did two stretches on a carrier, six years in all, an' decided he'd rather get aout than keep it up fer fourteen more. I was livin' in Montpelier, doin' office work fer a furniture store. He had family there, an' was stayin' with 'em til he could get on his feet as a private citizen again. He knew a good bit of electronics, and got on with Merraco down in Northfield. Had some buddies from work who liked this partiklar club, an' went there of a weekend. One o' tha girls I worked with was gettin' married, an' we got together an' sorta give her a bachelorette party. We all ended up at tha same place. Tha two of us locked eyes acrost tha room, an' that was all she wrote."

"Aw! That's sweet!"

"That he was. We married inside o' two months. His folks liked me, an' mine liked him. We never did have any in-law troubles. 'Bout a year after we married, my aunt 'n' uncle that ran this place up an' retired. Moved ta Arizona an' asked if me an' Stephen wanted tha place. He jumped on it. Been here ever since."

Wendy nodded. "Ian O'Musca works for you, doesn't he?"

"That he does."

"You don't have any other family interested in the diner? Your kids or anyfur?"

"We never was blessed with children. Stephen was a hare."

"Oh." She let that digest for a moment, and then asked, "How long … if you don't mind my asking, how long ago did he die?"

"Be eighteen year, come May." Her eyes grew distant, and the shade of a smile picked at the corners of her muzzle. "I reckon he'd still be with us but for tha wreck."

"Car accident?"

"Ayah. Got hit by a drunk driver."

"I'm sorry."

"So'm I. But life goes on, ya know?"

_Life goes on. How many times have I said that to myself? Guess I'm not the only one._

When Wendy didn't respond, Elly placed a gentle paw on her arm. "Ya know, if a body lives long enough, there'll be some regrets. Can't be helped. But I try as I may ta leave tha past alone, 'cept fer what learnin's I can take from it."

The vixen nodded. "Yeah. Me too. Most days. You're right, though, it doesn't usually do any good to wallow around in might-have-beens." She gave the old cat a grin and added, "Which is why I plan to 'troll the clubs' as you put it."

"Ayah. An' I hope that works aout fer ya, same as it did fer me."

"I'll let you know."

##

_** Friday 27 January 2017, 1:15am **_

It had been a very long day for Karl. Practically every single busted widget in the county had found its way into his shop, and since closing up at five he'd spent much of his time in fixing all the easy ones. That reduced the queue to some fifteen items, and he knew that he'd have to order new parts for better than half of them. That could wait until tomorrow. He rummaged through his larder and put together a simple but generous late supper. Afterwards, he got caught up on his trap sites and worm programs, checked the records from the security system he'd installed at Ash Creek, spent twenty minutes going through several sets of _rapier-main-gauche_ forms, and turned in by a quarter of one.

Though he was a light sleeper, Karl could achieve that state pretty much at will. He was drifting into REM-sleep seven minutes after turning out the lights. But his usual dream pattern – typically involved with replaying and categorizing recent events – shortly gave way to entirely unfamiliar territory.

_. . . . . . . He knew this road. Knew the rise and fall of the land as he ran, his breath coming easily. Exulting in the feel of the cold wind in his face, he increased his speed. He recognized the fence, broken and smashed though it be, and the bombed out guard house, and the artificial mountain in the distance. He passed two burned vehicles as he ran._

_What had happened? How had the compound been breached? When the road forked he veered right, bearing down on a massive building that came into view around a bend: the training facility where Colonel Prosyanni had first assembled Omicron Platoon._

_He stopped in front of it, pulled his blades, and prepared to kick open the door. But that wasn't necessary, since what was left of the door hung loose and splintered from the hinges. He slipped inside, Augmenting his vision, ready for anything …_

… _Anything but this._

_The being that faced him commanded all his attention. Flashing black eyes bored into him, eyes that filled his field of vision, eyes that peered into his inmost secret thoughts. A voice sounded in his head._

"_For you the gift I make."_

_Slowly, with controlled and careful motions, he sheathed his blades, and then spoke one word: "Nicu."_

"_You take. Is to her protect to be."_

_Karl looked down at the floor in front of his feet, where something flickered in the light from the door. He bent and picked it up, letting it fall to its full length. Facing the Dalmatian again, he said, "It's a necklace."_

"_Is more. __You__ know. Is for her, to be protect."_

_Karl's own eyes narrowed slightly. "Why are you affecting that heavy accent? In this dream state we communicate via thought."_

"_Because, my good lad, you seemed to expect it. And besides, it's fun. Would you deny an old fur his simple pleasures?"_

"_I suppose not." He looked again at the necklace. A thin chain of braided gold serpentine looped through a cunningly wrought metal knot. It was of copper, silver, and black iron, and sported a large star sapphire in the center of its complex woven pattern. "This is a stunning piece of work. And you say it's for Wendy?"_

"_Who else?"_

"_Why?"_

"_Because my daughter insisted."_

"_So the wards you placed on the Inn are insufficient?"_

"_Hardly. But she is convinced that your little vixen will need this."_

"_**My**__ vixen?"_

"_Your vixen. You needn't play coy with me."_

_That gave Karl somewhat to pause. "As you say. But why not just give it to her yourself?"_

"_She would not accept it from me. She will from you."_

"_Very well. I will see that she gets it."_

_Nicu's form grew insubstantial, fading quickly. "Soon."_

"_Yes. Soon."_

Karl's eyes popped open. He sat up and slowly looked around his loft. Then, hearing something tinkle as it slid across the back of his left paw, he glanced down. With a total lack of surprise, he raised the necklace to eye level. Then he shivered and said aloud, "I _**wish**_ he wouldn't pull that crap. That just creeps me out."

He got up and looped the necklace over one of the hooks on his coat rack. Then he downed a PowerBar and a liter of orange juice. He stood by his window for a few minutes, surveying the landscape, and then, knowing that it would be a while before he could get back to sleep, went out to have a walk in the night.

##

**Wrong must not win by technicalities.**

_**-Aeschylus**_

##

_** Friday 27 January 2017, 3:50pm **_

The brief-but-intense season of warmth still held sway over the northeast, the balmy, moisture-laden cell pushing upward almost to Lake Superior. West of there, bitterly cold temperatures maintained a miserly grip on the land, with daily highs rarely rising above ten below. Where the two air masses collided, the storms were fierce enough to bring commerce to a standstill, and the Rust Belt languished in a blizzard-induced coma.

But here in northern New York, the forests resounded with birdsong and the brittle ring of ice smashing to pieces against the ground. A constant dripping, as if a gentle rain were falling, accompanied the unseasonable melt. This ersatz precipitation was beginning to irk the foxes that kept vigil over the dire creature huddled under the low, dark green boughs. They'd been here for a few days, watching by turns, staying carefully downwind, and far enough from the hiding place so as not to alert him to their presence. They had learned what befell any creature unfortunate enough to come within his grasp.

It so happened that both of them were present when the branches flicked aside and the creature emerged. Gaunt, emaciated and filthy, his eyes two red-rimmed hollows above a muzzle that seemed frozen in a permanent grimace, he stood there moments only. Then he oriented himself and loped off to the northeast. After a moment, the foxes followed.

They tracked him for a few kilometers, then stopped and conferred with one another briefly. The male then continued on after the creature; the vixen headed southeast. They now knew where the thing was going. Passing on the warning would be difficult. She ran all afternoon and into the night, aiming for the only spot that any of them knew about where a fox could cross Lake Champlain: the bridge at Crown Point.

Before she got too fatigued to run any more, she met up with another fox. He knew of the Word, knew that there was an unnatural creature loose in the world, knew that they were charged with watching. He would take the warning the rest of the way.

It was deep night when he got to the bridge. He had no trouble crossing. There was hardly any traffic to contend with; the furs in the little building on the other side were watching one of the shining boxes, and not paying any attention to the outside world. He took off, heading slightly north of east. He would have to get to the ancient ground before the next sunset. He knew that lives, many lives, might depend upon his getting there in time to give his message to the High One. He ran harder, faster, concentrating on his stride.

It was at the edge of a hayfield that he heard the thunder, and felt the strike. The force of it knocked him over, splintering bone, spraying the snow with his blood. He couldn't draw a breath. He couldn't make his legs work, or turn his head. Paralyzed, staring up at the starlight, his lifeblood leaking away, he knew a brief regret that his message would not be delivered. Then darkness came for him.

The farmer lowered his rifle and grinned. "Gotcha, lousy varmint! Won't be takin' _my_ chickens any more, will ya?" He parked his weapon in the crook of one arm and walked off toward where he'd seen the fox go down. He hoped he hadn't hit the critter anywhere that it would mess up the pelt.

_** elsewhere **_

Her mind glowed in his higher vision like a distant beacon. For the first time in many weeks, his target was clear, not the hazy uncertainty he'd been dealing with. He could feel the Master's impatience, its eager hunger at the thought of finally obtaining the soul it had lusted after, and the urgency spurred him on.

The Master would not be denied any longer.

He plodded on, using the arcane energy that the Master lent him, ignoring the ravening pangs of his own hunger. That did not matter. Only the Master's needs would be considered.

He did not know – nor would he have cared if he _had_ known – of the sentry line of National Guard, state police, and FIA agents spread out to either side of Elizabethtown. To him, they would have constituted nothing more than a convenient food source. It is a pity, in more ways than one, that they never got the chance to try out their plasma rifles on him. But the sad fact is that in redirecting his path toward Burlington, he skirted around the northern flank of the surveillance line by a good six or seven klicks.

When he got to the shore of the Lake, though, the Master let him know that it was time to re-establish contact with his prey. He found a secluded spot and built a small fire; then he made a canvass of the area, returning with four small, feral squirrels. Not ideal, but they would do. Methodically, he began the incantation.

##


	14. Chapter 6 Near Misses Part B

_**Chapter Six – Near Misses – Part B**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

**My candle burns at both ends;  
It will not last the night.  
But ah, my foes, and ah, my friends,  
It gives a lovely light.**

_**-Edna St Vincent Millay**_

##

_** Friday 27 January 2017, 10:05pm **_

Wendy tossed off her neat scotch with a grin. _Now __this__ is more like a day ought to be._

_The Spice of Life_ turned out to be everything she'd hoped it would be. She got all the items she needed, and quite a few things she thought she _might_ need at some future date. True, she was heavily anticipating the money Karl was herding her way; no way could she afford this stuff otherwise. But even disregarding that, the store was a delight to shop in. The designers went out of their way to make ambling up and down the aisles a pleasurable experience. There were more than a dozen 'test stations' set up where shoppers could sample how a particular spice performed in one or more dishes. There were three coffee shops, artfully spaced, that (in addition to coffee and an excellent array of pastries) offered plush, overstuffed sofas and several recliners where one could take a few minutes out just to relax. There was even a miniature spa. Wendy considered having her claws done, but couldn't quite justify the cost. However, since it was free, she did spend a few minutes with her footpads luxuriating on a vibrating-massage footrest.

Arriving back at the hostel around six, she partook of the communal supper: stew and greens that were frankly substandard … and sweet, peppery cornbread muffins that made her long to know the recipe. But she ate sparingly, in preparation for the night ahead.

Not much later, her little black dress draped perfectly around her tautly bouncy form, she headed out to The Monkey Bar, the first club on her list. By nine-thirty she'd been to three more, gotten hit on by everything in sight, and had actually _paid_ for exactly one drink. She got to practice her flirts, her put-downs, her verbal flips, and once had to resort to bending a guy's finger back until he was crying on his knees beside the bar stool. 'No' does, after all, mean no. Considering how much he'd had to drink, though, she didn't really hold it against him, and accepted his slurred apology gracefully before wafting out of the place.

She was having a blast.

Now, in Rasputin's, Wendy looked back across the tiny table at the sleek mouse occupying the other chair.

Natasha had caught her eye the moment Wendy walked in, but the vixen found out soon enough that she knew how to play things cool. After subtly checking each other out, Natasha went back to kibitzing a card game and Wendy parked herself at the bar. She was soon swapping conversational jabs and feints with a couple of the regulars – one of whom, predictably, insisted on paying for her scotch. A pleasant ten minutes passed this way, but then she took her drink to a table along the wall, not too far from the restrained war that occupied the poker players. It gave her a better view of the mouse.

She liked what she saw. While the girl hadn't a gram of excess fat anywhere, she filled out her halter top quite satisfactorily. She looked to be a touch shy of Wendy's height, and had her blue-black headfur cut in such a way as to frame her face fetchingly. When she glanced in Wendy's direction and caught her appraising stare, the vixen didn't look away. The mouse gave as good as she got.

Wendy used a foot to nudge the other chair away from the table a centimeter or two, and the mouse took the hint, sidling over with a carelessly sensuous gait that settled a faint smile on Wendy's face. When she got there, she placed a slim paw on the chair back and took a slow sip of her spiced rum.

Wendy took a quick sniff in her direction and asked, "Captain Morgan?"

The mouse shook her head lightly. "Nah. Mount Gay."

She had a clear, almost bell-like voice that made Wendy's smile grow broader. The vixen responded, "Don't believe I know that one."

"It's lighter. Doesn't fill you up." _Sip._

"Do tell. I might have to try that."

"I'd recommend it."

"Name's Wendy."

The mouse pulled the chair out and slid into it. "Natasha."

"Oo. Exotic."

"Blame my grandmother. It's her name."

"Oh, I wouldn't say 'blame'. I think it fits."

And for the first time that evening, Natasha smiled for her. It wouldn't be the last. They fell into an easy and animated conversation. When they left together half an hour later, several pairs of eyes followed them, with varying degrees of regret.

##

_** Saturday 28 January 2017, 1:20am **_

Natasha owned an impressive array of "toys", and they spent a very pleasant couple of hours trying out most of them before falling into an exhausted sleep. To begin with, the mouse used Wendy's belly as a pillow, but after a while adjusted to a close embrace, legs crossed together, their muzzles nearly touching. So it isn't that surprising that the mouse suffered some psychic leakage from Wendy's nightmare …

_. . . . . . . Holding Natasha's warm hand as they ran lightly down the path to the water, Wendy was eager to show her friend the boathouse, to let her experience the delicious combination of peace and excitement that she always found there. At fourteen, she was still young enough to relish the fantasies she'd built here at the lake. Her long, red pigtails swinging in time with her bare, skipping feet, she led the other girl into the old clapboard building's long, cool interior. There, she swung around, bringing them face to face._

_From the first time she set eyes on her Wendy had loved Natasha, and knew in her heart that the darkly pretty Slavic girl felt the same. Here, in the privacy afforded them, she brought her lightly freckled face up close to Natasha's, kissed those full, pouting lips …_

_. . . . . . . and pulled back sharply, crying out. Natasha had bitten her!  
In shock and hurt she put a hand to her mouth, now salty with blood,  
and looked down at the red stain on her fingers.  
Then she stared around in confusion. The building was wider,  
and a great deal darker than it had been only seconds ago._

_A low growl jerked her attention back to Natasha … only it wasn't Natasha.  
The massive, black-scaled being's wide, slitted eyes glowed with a sulfurous hatred.  
It raised enormous arms that ended in razor-like hooks and came at her._

_She noticed that she was holding a weapon,  
some kind of spear thing with an axe at one end.  
She swung it up, striking the monster's arm.  
Black blood splattered the wood beams of the ceiling.  
It screamed and backed off, shook the arm, then jumped at her._

_Wendy realized with a start that she knew how to use this weapon.  
Its haft felt familiar and comfortable in her hands.  
With swiftly growing confidence, she sidestepped on the dungeon's rough stone floor  
and caught the thing a sharp blow to the back as it rushed past.  
It shrieked, turned, and closed in,  
those impossibly long arms held wide and low for the kill._

_With practiced ease Wendy planted the pole-arm's axe in a crack in the floor  
and let the charging monster impale itself on the spear end.  
It hammered home on the cross-piece,  
its momentum carrying it up and over her to slam into the wall.  
She jumped back out of the way to watch its death-throes . . . . . . . _

_And met Natasha's tortured gaze. Her small, trembling hands were wrapped around the handle of the broken oar that protruded from her belly. Her blood pooled on the boards and dripped between the cracks. With a tiny gasp she asked, "… Why? … Why? …" Then her eyes closed in pain and she slumped to the floor._

"_Wendy … what have you done?"_

_She jerked around. Her father! Glancing back at the murdered girl, her mouth working, she tried to explain … but no words came._

_He walked toward her, removing his belt as he approached. "Wendy, how could you do this? How could you kill your friend?" With a casual flip, he slung the line of braided leather twice around her slender neck, caught both ends, and began to pull._

_Scrabbling her fingers at the rough cord, Wendy's eyes bulged as she tried to breathe. Her arms had no strength. Her gaze centered on her father's face._

_His own eyes began to glow, shining with the same sick, yellow light that the monster's had, and Wendy realized this wasn't her father. Her struggles became more frantic, but no more effective._

"_You must pay … you __will__ pay …"_

Wendy knocked her head painfully on Natasha's nightstand as she fell off the bed. Quickly she fought loose from the entangling sheet and stood, looking wildly around the room: no monsters; no corpses; no blood. She felt her neck, finding it undamaged, and then noticed that her bed-mate was whimpering piteously.

She knelt beside the mouse and shook her gently. "Natasha? Natasha, you gotta wake up."

The other femme flailed out, nearly smacking Wendy across the face, and sat straight up in bed with a small scream. The vixen reached out to comfort her, but Natasha scooted back instantly, falling off her side of the bed, and then crab-walking back against the wall, eyes wide in fear.

"Natasha, listen! It's me, Wendy! We're okay. It's over."

It took a few moments of calm reassurance before Natasha would let the vixen touch her. Then she crumpled up into a sobbing ball. Wendy felt like doing the same, but she (unfortunately) had had enough practice at this to know it wouldn't do any good. A colossal pounding was already settling in at the back of her head.

She helped the mouse to her feet and said, "Come on. Let's get washed up. Then I've gotta get out of here."

"What? Now?"

"Yep."

"You're just gonna _leave?_"

"Got to."

"But why?"

"Trust me, you don't want me around. Not if this crap is coming back."

"… coming back?"

Wendy nodded.

"You've … you've had … this has happened before?"

"Uh-huh. Used to happen a lot. Hasn't for a few months. This one's bad."

"Oh. Wow. I'm sorry." She wiped a shaky paw across her forehead. "What do you do about them?"

"We're gonna do it right now. Into the shower with you."

And true to her word, Wendy was on the road south in under forty-five minutes.

##

_** elsewhere **_

He fell back with a pained mewling sound. As it always did, her sudden waking started an echo of Wendy's ferocious headache. A crew of goblins set up a smithy behind his eyes and got busy hammering.

But none of that mattered. He felt the Master's pleasure as it fed on the vixen's fear, salted with the extra tidbits from the other one that had been there. The Master was pleased with him.

Timidly he reached for one of the squirrels. When no rebuke came he tore it off the spit and devoured it, leaving nothing but the claws and some fur. The other three quickly followed.

Trotting down to the river, he plunged his head in and sucked in a great mouthful. It was hardly the cleanest available, but again, that didn't matter. When he had drunk his fill and shook out his headfur, he got his bearings again and dove in, swimming toward the far shore with swift, even strokes, utterly oblivious to the chilling bite of the water.

##

Natasha had given her a few painkillers before she left, but even so the ache was so bad she could barely see to drive. More than once the wheels veered over onto the washboard shoulder, and Wendy would jerk the vehicle back into the roadway. Each time she stopped and got out, walking several circuits around the van before climbing back in and resuming her trip. Glad she was that she'd not been any farther from home. Less than fifty klicks separated Natasha's apartment from the Inn, but still it took Wendy over an hour and a half to get there.

However, unaccountably, as soon as she stepped over the porte cochere threshold, the headache went away. She took a deep breath and stood a little straighter, but was immediately overcome by a prodigious yawn. With weary steps she made her way up to her rooms, fell into bed, and was asleep in minutes.

##

She was moving. He finally figured that much out.

His course had swung from east-by-northeast around to southeast. It wasted time and lengthened his swim, and that frustrated him. The wind was high this night, and Lake Champlain sported a thick mantle of whitecaps. It would have been easy to get turned around if he'd not had a good target to aim for. Then, just when he thought he had his bearings again, her mind-light winked out.

Treading water, confusion flooding what little brain he had left, he cast about for a clue as to which way he should go. Eventually he struck off more-or-less south. If only the wind would calm down, maybe he could think. He wanted to ask the Master for help, but feared disturbing it so soon after a feeding. With the choppy water peaking at over a meter, he had his paws full just making headway. So he may be excused for not noticing the ship bearing down on him.

He never really heard it, though just before impact he felt the swell of its wake. He jerked around in time to see the colossal bow looming over him. Then it swatted him under.

Turning and coiling in the tow, he lost every shred of his sense of direction. He wanted to swim down, but 'down' kept changing every few seconds. The keel bumped him several times, slick and hard, and there was nothing to grab onto. A rhythmic thumping grew in his head. Realizing what it was, he redoubled his efforts to get away … but he may as well have saved his strength. The prop sucked him in.

##

As dawn broke several hours later, a black-furred, waterlogged thing washed up on the northern tip of Shelburne Point, west of Burlington. Silent and unmoving apart from the minimal rise and fall of an occasional breath, it resembled nothing more than a clump of torn netting or some other untidy pile of flotsam; but at length it dragged itself away from the water's edge, up the rocks and into the scrub cedars. It would be a few days before he was lucid enough to take stock of his surroundings. He would need to heal again. The Master would be unhappy.

##


	15. Chapter 6 Near Misses Part C

_**Chapter Six – Near Misses – Part C**_

. . .

. . .

. . .

##

**He has shown you, O man, what is good.  
****And what does the Lord require of you  
****but to do justly, and to love mercy,  
****and to walk humbly with your God?**

_**-Micah 6:8**_

##

_** Tuesday 31 January 2017, 1:30pm **_

"He has done _what?_"

"Got religion."

"… What do you mean by that?"

"Gulo's toined over a new leaf. Straightened up ta fly right. Done made 'is peace wit' da Big Fur Upstairs. Just a regular Joe now."

"I see. And you think because of this he is no longer a menace to the public?"

"Dat's what I said. He's on da up-an'-up."

Hemanth Rajid stared at his communications board incredulously. "You cannot possibly be serious."

"Ya know me bettah dan dat, Raj. Wouldn' say so if I didn' t'ink it."

Rajid digested Capra's comments for a moment. This put a new twist in their plans, one that he might be able to turn to their advantage. If it truly wouldn't put anyfur's life at risk to contact Gulo …

"Capra, I need all your backup documentation. Everything you have gleaned about his character, his supposed conversion, his activities, his relationships, his place in the community, and all your deductive work."

"Figgaed ya'd ast for dat. I'll have it wrapped up an' in yer paws by suppah time."

"Oh?"

"We ain't been sittin' aroun' wit' our t'umbs stuck up our butts, ya know."

"Indeed." The mongoose's muzzle twisted in wry humor. "I am happy to learn that you have successfully avoided soiling your opposable digits. Rajid out."

* * *

##

**Inanimate objects are classified scientifically  
****into three major categories:  
****those that don't work,  
****those that break down,  
****and those that get lost.**

**-**_**Russell Baker**_

##

_** Thursday 2 February 2017, 11:30am **_

With a measure of satisfaction, Wendy watched as the propane truck trundled away down her drive. Now that both large tanks were topped off, she felt confident she could handle the rest of the winter without a problem. With that out of the way, she turned back to her more immediate concern: the walk-in freezer was on the fritz again.

As this situation was entirely predictable, given the nature of the beast, she'd been careful not to rely too heavily on the unit. Mid-morning she had devoted to transferring the smaller items to her other two freezers. Two enormous cooler chests she'd found upstairs served to contain the side of beef and the three tubs of various bulk ingredients that rounded out the big unit's contents. She could make plenty of ice, so that wouldn't be a worry.

Recalling her last conversation with Karl concerning this contraption, she didn't feel very sanguine about foisting it off on him again. But that wasn't really a decision that was in her paws. She needed the freezer to work. The money for a new one wasn't here yet. Ergo, she had to ask him to come and fix it. Sighing, she opened her PA and hit the '1'.

Karl picked up on the second ring. "Hey, Wendy! What can I do you out of?"

"Uh …" She paused a second to deconstruct that question. "How's that again?"

"How may I be of service?"

"Oh. That's a little better. Um … well, see …" Phrasing the question was giving her a bit of trouble. "… you remember when you were out here last September to work on the freezer?"

" … Yeah."

"And you said it needed to be replaced?"

"I did. It does."

"Well … okay, look, I know this is kind of 'above and beyond', but I need you to get it running again."

"It's not running?"

"Not really, no."

"What's it doing? Is it completely dead or just cooling intermittently?"

"That last one. On-off-on-off all the time."

"Hmph."

That grunt didn't encourage her. "I know it's asking a lot, but I promise I'll get a new one just as soon as my money gets back. Scout's honor!"

"Oh, I'm not worried about that. That isn't the problem. If it had just stopped working it would be easier to diagnose. With it doing what you describe, diagnostics is apt to be a chore."

"Oh." Her crestfallen mood came through loud and clear. "So you can't …"

"No, no, I didn't say that. I don't doubt that I can fix it. It just seems a shame to put more effort into such a lame duck. Is there no way you could just wait it out? We're talking two weeks, three at the outside."

"No … I wish I could, but … no. I've got perishables, and nowhere outside to store them that would be secure. Besides, this warm spell kinda killed that option."

"Eh. That's true enough."

"So you'll come fix it?"

"Ayah."

"Great! Thank you so much!"

"Tell you what. I'll pop over there right now and see if I can figure out exactly what the problem is. That way if I have to order a part – which is likely – I won't have to waste your time later."

"Whoo! Sounds good to me. The sooner, the quicker, I always say."

"Cool. See you in twenty."

* * *

##

_** 5:15pm **_

Capra read through the report again and looked up at Wayne Nutu. "You sure 'bout dis?"

The meerkat gave a short nod. "We got confirmation from the FIA and two local sources. All the data match. That's Cronin."

"Damn. T'ought dat sonuvabitch uz long gone."

"We all did, except for Tracey. She's the one who paired up the photos."

"Eh. Figgahs. She's got a poysonal stake in it." He tossed his cigar butt into the metal can placed nearby for that purpose, and pulled another of the noxious stogies from a shirt pocket. "Any o' da uddahs show up?"

"Others?"

"Yeah. Any o' da ol' gang. Da Schmedtte family, fer instance. We know a bunch o' dem are still kickin', and Rijker Schmedtte was one o' da ones dat Trina ran into upstate."

A puzzled frown settled on Wayne's brow.

Capra prompted, "Ya know. Trina an' Kat went up dere ta talk ta dat camera guy wit' _Vermont_ magazine an' …"

"Oh, that's right! I didn't remember their names." He turned the question over a time or two and shook his head. "No, not any that were in our database. He's got himself a new gang."

"Fair enough. Whatcha gonna do about it?"

"He hasn't moved since we picked up his signal three days ago. He's planning something, something local to Ticonderoga. I've got the police chief there in the loop. He's itching to take the guy. But the federal warrant's right here with me."

"Ya t'ink ya need ta go, den go. Be a nice feddah in ya cap, ya catch dat bastard."

"Yeah, that thought crossed my mind." He frowned. "Oh, wait a minute."

"What's da mattah?"

"You gonna be okay here just by yourself? There's no telling when Manny will be back, and I know with Foxworth over at the courthouse until the middle of next week, if anything were to happen …"

"Don' see why not. You saw da reports. You helped me wit' da details. Ain't like Gulo's goin' on da warpat' any time soon. 'sides, if dat storm 'at's s'posed ta hit tomorrah is even half as bad as dey say, won't be nobuddy goin' nowhere."

"Thanks, Capra. I'll have this mess with Cronin wrapped up by Sunday, if everything goes well. Then, if the roads are closed, I can wait until they get 'em cleared again."

"Wear ya body armor. Cronin don't take no prisoners."

"Don't worry."

"Don' get smart wit' me. Worryin's my job."

* * *

##

_** Frid__ay 3 February 2017, 5:30pm **_

"I am _so sorry_ about this, Wendy!"

"Yeah, well. Another few days won't break the bank."

"They got here with the condenser right after the blizzard hit, and we just _barely_ did manage to get it unloaded. There's no way I can get it out there tonight. I feel like a right git, not keeping closer tabs on the weather."

"You and me both. I normally listen to the radio some every day, but yesterday I had a lot going on and I kept my music library cued up."

"If I can make it, I'll be out there tomorrow, though. I just need to finish up a thing or three."

"Now, Karl, don't do anything foolish. You said that – you called it a condenser, right? – that the condenser was some 'big thing', right? Quinn's old p.o.s. snowmobile …"

"Not to worry. That wasn't what I was talking about."

"Oh. Okay. What, then?"

"You'll see. Assuming I can get everything done."

"Being mysterious again?"

"No, just trying not to get your hopes up."

"Well, thank you, I think."

"You're welcome, I suppose."

She chuckled. "Just in case you do manage to get out here tomorrow, I'll have a special treat waiting for you."

He didn't say anything for a moment, which prompted her to clarify, "Not _that_ kind of treat."

"Ah. Okay. Thanks, then."

"See ya."

##


	16. Chapter 7 Recognition

**_Chapter Seven – Recognition_**

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

**If you devote your life to seeking revenge,  
****first dig two graves.**

_**-Confucius**_

##

_** Friday 3 February 2017, 6:45pm **_

"There ya go, Mr. Borren."

With a grateful smile, the newcomer received his steaming cup of coffee and took a sip. Snuggling up a little closer to the stove, he said, "Thanks, Pops. Didn't know for a while there if I was gonna make it or not."

"Ayah," Quinn agreed. "Blizzahds been bad this year. This ain't new."

"New to me. I never saw anything like it. One minute I'm drivin' along, fightin' the snow, tryin' to keep it between the ditches, and the next thing I know, bam! There goes my windshield. Couldn't see crap through it." Resting elbows on knees, the ferret shook his head in amazement. "You ever see anything like that before?"

"Once or twice't. Cold front come in fast enough, pop tha glass right out'n the frame, or do what yours did."

"Damnedest thing I ever saw." He took another swallow of his coffee and said, "It's funny, though. Fellow I worked with one time was from the Upper Peninsula, and he could _tell_ some stories. He saw a whole parking lot do that when a cold front blew down from Canada. Said northern Michigan wasn't so bad in the spring, summer and fall, but the other ten months of the year could get brutal."

Quinn wheezed out a chuckle. "Ayah. Spent some time in tha Canadian Rockies, long years back. That's what I thought on 'em." He settled himself a little more comfortably in his rocking chair and said, "Tell me somethin'?"

"Sure."

"What's so important," he asked, studying his guest's face, "as ta get a body aout ta these pahts in such a storm?"

Mr. Borren snorted, "It wasn't like I really had a choice. I'm s'posed to start a new job Monday in Upstate, close to the border. Jerks at Walpole made me work out my two weeks, and gave me shit about it the whole time."

"Walpole?" Quinn asked, as his eyes narrowed just the barest fraction.

"Electronics warehouse in Boston."

"… Ah."

"So I had the weekend to move. My girlfriend's old man's drivin' the moving van. Dunno _**where**_ in hell he got stuck. Crazy old fart don't believe in PA's."

"… Grudgin' way ta talk abaout a fur what's helpin' ya move."

"He ain't helpin' _me_. He's helpin' _her_. He's done his level best to break us up."

"… Ah."

"Anyway, Kayla's already there. And now I'm stuck here, and with this frackin' blizzard closin' everything down, it looks pretty grim for me getting there by Monday."

"Hm. That it does." The old raccoon picked up his newspaper, effectively ending the conversation. He didn't know why the ferret had suddenly decided to tell him a pack of lies, but he figured it was none of his business. That didn't, however, mean that he had to aid or abet the falsehoods by giving them his attention.

After a few silent minutes the ferret asked, "You got a cooler?"

"Eh?" Quinn eyed him over the top of the paper.

"Drink cooler. You know, sodas?"

"Long tha far wall."

"Thanks." He got up and ambled in that direction. As soon as his tail cleared the first row of shelves, the bell over the front entrance tinkled.

Karl pushed the door shut behind him, forcing it against the insistent wind, and then trotted over to where Quinn sat rocking. "Evening."

"Ayah. So it is."

"You hear about Wendy's freezer?" Karl came straight to the point, a tactic that the aged raccoon appreciated.

"Ayah."

"Well, I've got the replacement condenser, but it's fitted with twenty-millimeter copper pipe, so I'm going to have to sweat the bell connections onto the three-quarter-inch that's there already. I am _fresh_ out of solid-core solder. You got any?"

"You? Short of solder? I never heard tha like."

"Quinn, you wouldn't believe how insanely busy it's been at the Shop these last few days. Every busted fill-in-the-blank in three counties ended up on my workbench because of the warm spell."

"Reckon ya ain't got ta worry abaout _that_ for a while."

"Too true. But I used up my store."

"All of it?"

" I've got some flux-core, but it's the really thin stuff I use for electronics. Not much good for what I need."

"Ayah. Believe I've got some lead-free back o' tha power cords, third aisle. Be on a hook near tha top, toward this end."

"Thanks."

"Welcome." And he went back to reading.

While Karl was busy with his errand, the ferret came back, holding a soda. An old Adirondack chair that hunched in the shadows on the far side of the stove caught his eye, and he wandered over that way. He was sitting there, sipping from the can when Karl came back up front.

The wolverine held up three spools. "There were five of the kind I need. I left you two."

"So I see. 'at'll be nine an' thirty-eight."

Karl passed his chit over the reader, which dinged acknowledgement.

Quinn asked, "Ya be needin' any o' them PowerBar things? Got me a new shipment Tuesday, an' I know how ya favor 'em."

"Oh, yeah? Sure, I'll take some off your paws." He headed back into the aisles. It wasn't necessary to ask Quinn where they were.

The ferret, upon spotting the huge fur for the first time, had caught his breath. But his hesitation lasted less than a second. He smoothly completed his swallow of soda, and relaxed in his chair with as nonchalant an air as he could muster, willing his heart not to race. His eyes followed Karl as he disappeared into the store, and he kept an ear cocked for the slight sounds the big fur made while gathering his purchase. To offer his face a bit of concealment, he propped an elbow on the arm of the chair and rested his wrist against the side of his head. He didn't _think_ Gamma had ever gotten a good look at him, but one couldn't be too careful.

Appearing once again, and striding to the counter, Karl dumped his load of PowerBars next to the register. "I got thirty-one of 'em."

"Thirty-one at two-sixty apiece, 'at'll be eighty-three, forty-six with tax."

Karl swiped his chit again.

"You don't evah get tired o' them things?"

"Nope."

"Good business for _them_, I reckon."

"I don't mind." Karl swept the various articles into a plastic bag, bid the aged fur a good night, and hurried out the door.

When the ferret finished his drink he said, "Sir? Can you tell me where the restroom is?"

_Oh, 'Sir' is it now? What happened to 'Pops'?_ "Back o' tha store, toward tha far cornah."

"Thanks." He got up and turned that way.

"Recycle's ovah theah, othah side o' tha countah."

"Excuse me?"

"For ya can. Bin's ovah theah."

"Oh. Okay." He trotted over and tossed the empty into the barrel, then threaded his way through the shelves to the restroom. After locking the door behind him and making a keen study of the room, he entered the only stall and sat on the toilet lid. Fishing around briefly in his coat, he produced a compact PA, which he activated. When he heard a **beep** in his ear, he said, "Cradle."

Before too many seconds passed, a voice came on the other end. "Customer Service."

"I found a source for that special shipment."

There was a pause, and then, "Can we use these coordinates?"

"That would work."

After a _much_ longer pause the voice said, "We can have a rigging team out there in the morning."

"Good. Will the department manager be available to oversee loading?"

"No. He had pressing business elsewhere."

"… Izzat right?"

"Yes."

"I see. Well … If you'll recall, he _had_ mentioned that he wanted to inspect the package personally after the riggers get finished."

"Yes, but he said that, due to other factors, it was more important to stick to the timetable than to wait for his arrival."

"Huh. Okay. His decision. Hope he remembers that."

"I'm sure he will."

##

_** 7:10pm **_

"This complicates matters."

"Oh, ya t'ink? An' me short-pawed ta boot. Wish ta hell Foxwort' uz here."

Rajid rubbed two fingers back and forth along his temple a few times before remarking, "You said there was only one, did you not?"

"Jist one dat I seen. But you know _dat_ outfit. If dere's one o' dem fraggin' Trenchant Furs shows up, dere's ten skulkin' aroun' someplace. We just ain't seen 'em yet. I ain't got cameras evahwhere. Not dat dey'd do much good in dis blizzard."

"A pity, that."

"An' Borren's **_always_** on point. Squad leader at da least."

"I am well aware of Quentin Borren's status." Fingers drummed the desktop briefly. "This may help to explain Cronin's presence in Ticonderoga."

"I'd bet a steak dinner on it. But which one is woikin' fer da uddah?"

"Ordinarily I would place Cronin in charge. Borren is more of a field operative."

"I'd buy dat."

"His showing up in that tiny hamlet, though, and at this particular time … that makes no sense."

"Mebbe not, mebbe so. We dunno know what dey're afta."

"No. We don't."

"Hey. … What about dis …"

"Yes?"

"Ya t'ink dey might know about Gulo, too? Afta all, he was plastehed all ovah dat web page. Dat boy's got a mighty damn long lista enemies, an' he gave da Trenchants a real ol-fashioned clock-cleanin' back in '09. An' it'd tie in awful damn neat wit' dat mess Trina ran into oveh dat camera guy."

"You are … making a disturbing amount of sense." Rajid considered his options, not liking any of them much. "Let me do some checking, and I will call you back."

"Ya startin' ta sound," observed Capra with a chuckle, "like one o' dem branch managehs in a bank."

The mongoose frowned but decided not to rise to the bait. "Rajid out."

##

_** __ 9:10pm **_

Staggering blindly, he tripped again, falling full length in the snow this time. Nor did he arise quickly.

Vision blurred, his breath coming in jagged lances of pain that beat at his shattered ribs with each motion, he grasped a low branch and pulled himself erect.

_**Step.**_

No think. Just walk. Think is dangerous.

_**Step.**_

Stumble-catch-whimper.

_**Step.**_

The Master could not be denied.

_**Step.**_

_The Others whisper …_

_The Others want me to run, run away from the Master._

_The Others do not understand._

_**Step.**_

_There can be no running from the Master._

_Must not think those things, those bad things._

_Must not make Master angry._

_**Step.**_

Drive on, even as the raw, cracked edges of his long bones shrieked agony at every footfall.

Drive on, plowing through the hip-high drifts, sucking the bitterly cold air into lungs still leaking from the odd puncture.

Drive on, ignoring anything and everything that might slow him.

_**Step.**_

He must … he _must_ reach his goal, his enemy, his prey.

_**Step.**_

It was the Master's will.

_**Step.**_

Thy will be done.

_**Step.**_

With teeth gritted so hard that his gums bled, he fought down another howl of misery and pushed on into the gloom.

_Keep Master happy._

_Make Master proud._

_Bring Master food._

_Then Master won't hurt me._

_**Step.**_

_**Step.**_

_**Step …**_

##

_**__ Saturday 04 February 2017, 5:52am **_

A soft _ding_ from his control board brought Capra back from the edge of sleep.

He stretched and rubbed one eye with the heel of his paw, checking the message the computer had flagged. He'd been doing this all night. Every few minutes there would be a flurry of voice or text, almost always in code. Fortunately, the ISB had cracked the Trenchant Fur Network's common codes over a year earlier, so Capra's system could give him a translation in real time.

This was more of the same. Hints, but no names. General direction, but no locations. He knew they operated off the GPS, and that every piece of their communications equipment could ping any other unit and get its coordinates. The ISB used the same technology.

Quentin Borren was still in the general store. He'd made himself something of a nest in the big Adirondack chair by wrapping wadded-up newspapers in a tarp and draping it over the seat like a futon. Until the old raccoon that owned the place went upstairs to bed, he pretended to be asleep. But as soon as the raspy snores started wafting down through the ceiling, he sat back up and turned on his PA. Capra had been monitoring his every communication thenceforth.

The big canine knew Borren would slip up sooner or later and reveal what they were after. The more messages he listened to, the more he felt that the TFN and the ISB had similar goals, at least as concerned a certain wolverine. And the more he thought about it, the stronger grew his conviction that he couldn't let that happen.

He just didn't know how to go about it.


	17. Chapter 8 Timing Is Everything Part A

_**Chapter Eight - Timing Is Everything – Part A**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

**If you find yourself in a fair fight,  
****you didn't plan it properly.  
**_**-Nick Lappos**_

##

_** __Saturday 04 February, 7:51am **_

Quinn mumbled to himself as he slowly stumped down the stairs, "Blasted staircase be tha death o' me yet. Got ta take Karl up on thet offer ta put in a elevator." But when he got to the landing at the ground floor, he stopped, nonplussed. There were several furs standing around between him and the stove, all males with hard eyes and grim expressions. He spotted Mr. Borren as that worthy trotted over to him.

"Hope you had a good night's sleep, Pops."

"… It uz passable." His gaze flicked from the ferret to the front door, where the bell was no longer in evidence. "S'pose ya tell me what all this is abaout."

"Why don't you come over to the stove and make yourself comfortable."

Quinn could tell that wasn't just a suggestion, and ambled over that way, easing himself into his rocker. "Don't reckon tha paper come yet, has it?"

Borren was quietly impressed by the oldster's calm demeanor. "No. The blizzard's been blowing all night. All the roads are blocked."

Quinn glanced around pointedly at the other five furs in his store.

With an off-paw shrug, the ferret dismissed his unasked question. "My friends here were wondering what you might be able to tell us about that big wolverine that was in here last night."

"Ya mean Karl Luscus?"

"Oh, he's going by 'Karl' now? We knew him by another name."

"An' what might thet be?"

A cougar who stood behind Borren slid around and leaned over menacingly into Quinn's face. "We are the ones asking the questions. You are the one giving answers."

"Ah-huh." The old 'coon didn't seem particularly menaced. "Catch more flies with honey, as tha sayin' goes."

Borren volunteered, "Ya know, Pops, it don't really matter whether you give us the info we want or not … to us, that is. We'll find him, with or without your help. But it might matter to you. If you tell us what we want to know about … this 'Karl' person … it'll be healthier for you."

Quinn snorted. "I'll be turnin' a hundred tha comin' month. Ya kin try torturin' me if ya want, but I don't think this ol' body'd last too long. Waste o' ya time, an' save me tha trouble o' dyin' of old age."

A tiger, the largest of the group, grunted, "He's got a point, Borren." With an evil glitter in the eye he turned toward Quinn, he continued, "Why don't we just head down the street till we get to a house and ask whatever nice little family that lives there the same questions? Then later, after we've had some fun with 'em, we can let the ones that haven't died know how much help this old bastard was. I bet they'd appreciate that."

Quinn glared at him and gave his head a resigned shake. "Big, strappin' fur like you ought ta be doin' somethin' useful, 'stead o' thinkin' up ways ta hurt ya fellow citizens."

"In the first place, old-timer," said the cat, moving up in front of Quinn, "I'm not a citizen of this country. In the second place … it's fun."

"Fun."

"Oh, yeah."

"Ya make me sick."

The tiger drew back an arm to strike Quinn, but Borren caught it. "Hold on, Snapfinger. You'll knock his old head right off."

Quinn wagged a finger at them. "See, boys, tha thing is I don't mind a bit lettin' ya know where ta get up with Karl. Thet ain't tha issue. But he wouldn't like it."

"I don't give a rat's ass what he likes. He's goin' down."

"So ya really are plannin' ta fight 'im?"

"You might say that."

"Wouldn't advise it. Mr. Luscus don't cotton ta strong-arm tactics. Ya want somethin' from him, best idee is ta just ask."

"The only thing we want from _him_," retorted the tiger, "is his hide."

With one eyebrow climbing incredulously, Quinn snickered and slowly rose to his feet.

"Where do you think you're goin', Pops?"

"Ta get ya a map. Wouldn't want ya ta miss tha Shop in all this snow. Thet might make ya late f'r ya ron-dee-voo."

"… A map? Serious?"

"Already tol' ya I didn't have a problem gettin' ya together with Karl. Ya thet all-fired hell-bent on dyin', I ain't like ta stand in ya way."

One of the thugs pulled a pistol and held it on Quinn while he collected a local map from a rack. Borren said, "Candle, when he's done, tie him up."

Quinn just cocked an ear at that, and shook his head with a snort of amusement.

##

_** __8:12am **_

"Hey, Raj, yas dere?"

"Of course."

"I jist confoimed it. Da scumbags made Gulo."

"Oh, bloody hell."

"Yeh, no joke."

"Where are they now?"

"Still in dat ol' raccoon's place. He give 'em a map ta Gulo's shop."

"… Pardon me? There must be a problem with our connection. I thought you …"

"No problems, Raj. Like I tol' ya, da ol' guy got out a map an' showed 'em where da shop is."

"Did they torture him?"

"Nah. Best I c'n make out, he t'inks Gulo'll kill 'em all. Tried ta talk 'em outta fightin'."

"He is surely correct. That shop is a fortress. But how could he know _that_ if Beorn has been staying under the radar?"

"Beats me."

This latest information tumbled around in Rajid's head for a few moments before he asked, "So what, precisely, are they doing now?"

"Waitin' on da rest o' da bunch ta show up, looks like."

"I am afraid this could get unpleasant."

Capra leaned back and laughed at the comment. "T'anks, boss. I needed dat."

##

_**__ 10:37am **_

"Hey, Raj? Got some …" A jaw-cracking yawn interrupted him, but then he continued, "… sorry. Long friggin' night. Got some sorta int'ristin' news. Ya want it?"

The mongoose frowned down at the com unit. "Why can't you simply report in the usual fashion as my other agents do, without all this preparatory chit-chat?"

"Listen at 'im. '_**as**_ my other agents'. Geez."

Rajid sighed and rubbed his temples with both paws. If Capra hadn't been so incredibly good at his job . . . .

"All right. Let me hear your 'sort of interesting' news."

"I figgahed out what Gulo's been woikin' on."

Rajid waited.

And waited. "Well?"

"A sled."

"A sled?"

"Built 'imself a sled. Great big long t'ing. Looks kinda like a swamp boat. Got one mudda of a big fan on da back."

"How did you find out about it?"

"'Cause I had my eyes open when he tooled it outta town."

"Oh. . . . So it isn't exactly a secret."

"Ya could say dat."

Rajid filed it away in his mind. _So. Gulo is into recreational vehicles now. Among other things._ "Very well." He checked his notes from his and Capra's most recent conversation. "You said there were fourteen of the Trenchant Furs. Are they going after him?"

"Nope, not all of 'em. Dey split into two groups. One bunch headed over to 'is shop, a biggah bunch is tailin' 'im."

"Where is he going?"

"Lemme see." The canine transferred the stub of his cigar from one side of his muzzle to the other as he scanned the information running by on his screens. _Uh-oh. _"Crap. Not a hunnert percent pos'tive, but it looks like 'e might be headed up ta see dat ladyfox at da B&B. Hmph. Dat ain't good."

"Call her. Give her the standard anonymous tip that trouble is coming."

Capra took a few seconds to scan the local power/communications grid. _Dammit. Can't __**buy**__ a break today._ "Da lan'lines are still down out dat way. Stinkin' snow."

Rajid considered the matter for several seconds. "Can you initiate an intervention?"

Capra snorted. "How? Dere ain't but just da t'ree of us here: me, m'self, and I. Foxwort's still in da capitol an' Wayne hadda go an' tend ta dat mess in Ticonderoga. Manny's workin' wit' your lab boys dis week. An' dem scumbags is packin'. I'm gonna need backup. Can ya get me some help out here?"

"You should not require any, given that arsenal you are currently sitting on."

"Ya sayin' I can't make a call? Look, bub, I know Gulo c'n hannel 'imself, dat ain't da issue. But now dere's his ladyfriend ta t'ink about. Dey mix it up, she's toast." He stopped for a moment to re-light his cigar. "I'd love ta take out da scumbags m'self, but just t'day I ain't got da juice. An' now it looks like dey need ta be stopped 'fore dey meet up wit' Gulo, else dat vixen's had it."

Rajid frowned, running through his various options. "How much time do we have?"

"Damn little. If 'e _is_ goin' out ta da Inn, he'll be dere in ten minutes, fifteen tops. Ya got anybody local?"

A quick check through his database yielded nothing promising. "Unfortunately, no. Is there _nothing_ you do yourself?"

"Sure, I could do somethin'. I could get m'self shot."

Rajid stopped at one of the names in his list. _Hey, this might do. It's a long shot, though._ "How about if I can raise Sinclair?"

"Heh. Yeah, dat'd be good. Den all I'd hafta do is sit back an' watch da show. T'ink ya c'n get 'im?"

"I can try. You know how he is. If I can even contact him." Rajid was placing a call to Sinclair's pager as he spoke. "He will give me that spiel about having no trust in the ISB and how he has his own obligations and so on. Assuming he deigns to talk with me. I will see if I can use the vixen to convince him. Frankly, I do not think he would care one way or the other if Beorn _were_ to get killed."

Capra's voice was subdued. "Yeah. Dat's too bad." He transferred the control locus of his surveillance unit down to the snowcat in the garage and began bundling up for the intense cold. "I'll tail 'em for ya, boss, but dat's about all I can do now. Looks like we might be on mop-up detail again."

Rajid grimaced. "What fun. Ordinarily I would _prefer_ to just let them catch him. It would serve them right. But I'd hate to be around if something were to happen to another of Beorn's friends." He interlaced the fingers of both paws and placed his chin on them. "That doesn't bear thinking about."

"I'll keep ya postid."

"Thanks. Rajid out."

Capra hauled tail downstairs and opened one of his weapons lockers. He made a quick survey of the contents and chose a small mortar cannon and several shock flares. Heading into the garage, he proceeded to clip the mortar to its swivel mount and stow the flares in one of the under-seat compartments. _Mebbe I can buy Beorn a few seconds._

He hopped on, thumbed the switch to open the garage door, and whirred off into the blinding white landscape.

##


	18. Chapter 8 Timing Is Everything Part B

_**Chapter Eight - Timing Is Everything – Part B**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

##

_** __Saturday 04 February, __10:50am **_

Through the window by the kitchen door, Wendy was watching the snow fall.

Well . . . okay, it would be more accurate to say she was staring absently off into space in the general direction of the falling snow. She gazed through the flakes as they made their unhurried way to the ground, as they joined with their many, many brothers who had gone before, sculpting the gardening equipment into an other-worldly topography along the path out to the barn.

It had been coming down like this since the storm arrived on Groundhog Day. Not much wind any more, but a steady, heavy fall. Close to the buildings, some of the slight drifts piled up to over two meters, but the long sweep of hill that dropped away from the front porch of the Inn down to the road was as smooth and unbroken as a tabletop.

Unfortunately.

For whatever reason, the rough secondary road that meandered off from Highway 17 didn't seem to rate the attentions of the snowplow crew this time around … at least not until after all the main roads were clear. And that meant no traffic on the road, which meant no guests at Ash Creek Inn. And she was getting really, _really_, _**really**_ tired of _that_ state of affairs.

Her eyes fell to the various piles of paperwork on the table, bringing a small sigh of annoyance.

Bills. From the carpenter, from the tree surgeon, from the fur who had done the painting in the Chicago Suite, from the clinic, from the general store, from the electrical co-op, from her ISP, from the garage, from the two credit accounts. _Yeesh. The balance on AdVisor is getting downright scary. The minimum payment's over five-fifty a month!_

The center stack contained estimates for the rest of the work the Inn needed to get the next two rooms up to code.

With the arrival of winter her income had dried up with appalling speed. Sure, the business tended to be seasonal, and the blizzards in November and December had caught everyfur flat-footed, but to go from having guests lined up and waiting on the reservation list to having no clients at all in three weeks flat? Please! Then New Year's Day the snow storms came back, and off and on for three weeks they'd kept it up, which meant people had a hard time getting around, and nofur felt like braving the elements to come all the way out to Ash Creek just to eat supper. The brief warm spell during the last week of the month hadn't been any help, either. The snow in front of the Inn was too deep to melt away before everything froze again, so all it really accomplished was to create a twenty- or thirty-centimeter-thick base of ice for the latest blizzard.

And then, of course, there were the accounts receivable from her catering business. She sighed again in frustration over that state of affairs. It was amazing how bad people's memories could get when they owed you money. It was amazing that those who were well-off would stiff you, and think nothing of it. _It's amazing that Ginger Piercer has managed to keep from getting throttled long enough to become an adult, is what's amazing._

Well, hey, it was only money.

Uh-huh. Only money to _them_. She still hadn't been able to find out why that persnickety mouse was refusing to pay for the party.

The front doorbell startled her out of her woolgathering. She blinked, deliberately, twice, while cocking an ear at the hallway. _Who could that be?_ She knew the road was yet blocked; she hadn't heard the county snowplow recently, and frankly wasn't expecting it for some time. It was powered by an ancient, two-cylinder John Deere tractor engine and was clearly audible for almost two kilometers in still air. She placed the bills back into the 'To Be Paid' cashbox, got up, and peeked into the oven to check the progress of the two dried-apple pies. The crusts were firming up nicely, but there was no sign of browning yet. Good. Plenty of time. She made her way toward the front of the house. As she entered the rear hallway, the bell chimed again. Someone was impatient.

The many panes of beveled glass in the wide front door let in plenty of light, but one had to get right up to it to actually see anything through the small, transparent shapes. She hurried toward the door, but slowed markedly at the size of the shadow cast against it. She smiled. Caspian was back in Alaska. Surely there could be only one fur that big left in this neck of the woods! The shadow moved, and the chime rang once more.

Well! This was _exactly_ what she needed to break her sour mood. Grinning broadly, she sashayed up next to the door and unlocked the small viewing-panel located beside it. She composed herself, put on her very best "innocent" look, and slid the panel open to peer up at the enormous creature on the other side.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Karl looked down into the clear, golden-brown eyes sparkling through the view port. He grinned a little, stifled it, and said, in a most precise, carefully-modulated British accent, "I suppose it is not beyond the realm of the possible that such a dulciloquent young lady as yourself could be of notable assistance in this, my hour of need." Then he smiled, and indicated his toolbox on the porch beside him. "But I reckon it more likely that I'll be helping you this time."

"Oh, really! Well then, by all means, please come in." She undid the bolt and opened the door with an elaborate flourish.

She watched as he took off the light jacket and shook the snow back out onto the porch. He seemed to fill the entry. Over four meters of space separated floor and ceiling in the foyer, and she lacked a pawspan being able to reach the bottom of the chandelier that hung from its center. His head fur almost brushed it. He hung up his jacket on the coat rack beside the door, hefted his enormous toolbox, and said, "Take me to your leader, uh, that is, freezer."

She chuckled at that. "How in the world did you get here? You fly?"

"Nothing so marvelous as that. Look." He led her back to the door and opened it a crack.

She could see, parked about five meters from the house, a most peculiar vehicle. It was long and pointed and vaguely boat-shaped, but there was a huge fan mounted on the rear. Pairs of short fins or struts or something stuck up and down from the outer edges half-way down its length, and every surface shone a smooth, crystalline white. She could see the faint trail where it had skimmed over the snow up her driveway.

"It rides on top of the snow, then?"

Karl nodded in the affirmative.

"Cool! I want one!"

That pulled a chuckle out of him. "Sorry. No can do. That's a prototype. One of a kind. Fresh out."

She was fascinated by the unusual craft. "I want one anyway. Doesn't mean I'll get one, I know, but it would be so great to have for weather like this." She turned around to look him in the eye. "It _looks_ like it could fly. I'll bet it can. Over the snow anyway. Is it fast?"

"Fast enough for me. But then, as you know, this is the season I don't usually have to get anywhere in a hurry." He grinned. "That's why I can get by without carrying a watch. No schedule equates to no hurry."

She looked back at the sled. "That is _so great!_ You could sell the he… sell the hound out of those things, I'll bet."

"Oh, I don't know. I think, for what it cost me to build, that it might just fall into the classification of 'luxury item'. But, hey, it did get me out here. And hearing your laugh is definitely worth the price of construction."

Wendy's muzzle fur fluffed a little at the compliment. She closed the door, shivering in the draft, and said, "Karl, your timing couldn't be better. I needed something to get my mind off of my woes, various and nefarious. Do you have time to stay for lunch?"

He sniffed the air, then closed his eyes and sniffed more deeply. "Is that dried-apple pie?" His voice was suddenly low and smooth.

She clasped her paws behind her back and swiveled slightly side to side. "Mmm-hmm."

"Is it spoken for?"

Her tail began swishing. "One of them is. The other I had planned to use as a bribe on that fur who runs the Fix-it Shop. If you see him, tell him I'll swap him for it."

Karl grinned. He loved the verbal sparring he could count on whenever talking with this _most_ charming vixen. "I'll be sure to do just that. In fact, I'll bet I could find him if you give me about five minutes."

"As long as those minutes are spent somewhere besides the kitchen. It really wouldn't do for anything … _untoward_ to happen to those pies."

He set his toolbox back down and raised both paws in mock horror as he edged slowly around toward the hall to the kitchen. "My dear lady, I assure you that my intentions are purely honorable."

She giggled. "Your intentions are purely transparent, you beast!" She jumped into the hall and raced back to the kitchen, Karl breathing down her neck, literally. She landed right in front of the oven door and blocked it. He pulled up short, scant centimeters away, crossed one arm over his massive chest and rested his other against it, holding his muzzle twixt finger and thumb.

"We seem to have reached an impasse." He quoted in his best W.C. Fields voice. "The irresistible force confronts the immovable object. Whatever shall we do?"

Wendy was laughing so hard she was having trouble standing up straight, but she valiantly guarded the oven anyway. "Karl, stop!" _Gasp, giggle_. "They aren't ready!" _Wheeze, guffaw_. "Remember, patience is a virtue, and, and, . . . and good things come to those who wait, and, and, . . . and stuff." _Giggle, pant_.

Karl grinned and gave in. "Okay. Limp crust was never my favorite anyway." He smacked his paws together and rubbed them briskly. "So. Shall I assail yon recalcitrant freezer, that I may work my magic thereupon?"

Uncontrollable giggling robbed her of strength as she flopped into one of the chairs at the breakfast table. She got it reined in long enough to point and say, "I haven't moved it. It's still beside the pantry." Then she lost it again.

Karl went back to the foyer and retrieved his toolbox, which he placed near the freezer. After making sure that she wasn't watching, he whisked the condenser out of the sled's storage compartment and into the house, then got to work, accompanied by the sound of rich laughter and the smell of rich food.

##

Popper stopped his snowmobile some hundred-fifty meters from the east side of the Inn. He reckoned the light snowfall to be to their advantage. It would absorb some of the noise of their arrival. The rangy Doberman flipped the comm switch with his lower jaw. "Candle?" The speaker paused, but got no response.

"Candle, this is Popper, you read me?"

"This is Cahndle."

"Position."

"North o' th' hoose aboot three hunderd mehters."

Popper checked his scanner. "Move up another seventy-five meters and maintain. Flintstone?"

"Southeast, two hundred fifty meters."

"Maintain. Cadman?"

"Ah be due east, 'bout a hunnerd 'n' a half."

"Maintain. Parka?"

"Northeast, one hundred sixty meters. And Candle would be bloody well obvious to anyfur who happened to look his way."

Candle growled. "Sod you, eh?"

"Both of you shut up. Parka, maintain. Snapfinger."

All he got was muttering.

"Snapfinger, you got a problem?"

His response was a string of profanity and then some more muttering. Finally, "… sorry sonuvafuckin' engine died. Can't get it to start. Oh, hang on, there it goes. I'm better than four hundred meters off to the northwest."

"Move up to two hundred and maintain. Signal when you achieve position. Starr?"

"Yeah, we're here. South. Hundred-eighty meters. We can see Flintstone." The group had been short one snowmobile, so Starr and Borren were riding double.

"Good. Maintain." He checked his instruments. Two occupants, the target and one collateral. He cursed his bad luck again that they had not brought the larger rockets. It would have been preferable to simply blow the place to bits, but the house was much too large for that approach, and that would make it a lot harder to get a confirmed kill.

And he ardently desired to confirm this kill.

He opened the tight-beam channel again. "Engines on stealth speed. On my mark, proceed to objective. Acquire target and neutralize." He paused for several seconds to set the parameters of his engine, then waited on Snapfinger's signal. Half a minute later, he got it.

" . . . . . . . . Mark."

##

Capra was distinctly uncomfortable. He had arrived at the southern edge of the Meadow in time to witness the TFN crew surrounding the Inn with a professional precision that gave him seriously to pause. _If they had brought rockets big enough to blow up the house, they would have done it already. I don't have much time._ As he unlimbered the mortar cannon and locked it into firing position, he spoke the short code necessary to contact headquarters:

"Yo, boss!"

There was a four second silence, then, "Rajid."

"I wuz right. He's in dere wit' da vixen, and da scumbags are closin' in. I don't t'ink he knows dey're dere. You got up wit' Sinclair yet?"

"No, the scoundrel will not answer the page. Is there nothing you can do?"

"I'm gonna try a warnin' flare. If Gulo hears it or sees it, he might be able ta get ready for 'em. Udderwise, I can watch da fireworks, but dat's about all."

Rajid smacked the desktop with a paw._Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, . . . ._

##

Ambling around the corner into the small room containing the freezer, Wendy wiped her paws on her "mobius" apron. Karl was on his back, one arm hidden behind the freezer, his left paw training a brazing torch on something just out of her field of view. She squatted down, elbows on knees, as she watched him working on the section of copper pipe in question. "They're out of the oven now, if you're interested."

Karl had a look of intense concentration on his face, but replied, "Oh, I am mightily interested. Afford me please a few more seconds to get this last connection ensconced, my lissome, latifundian lady, and together we will investigate the realms of gustatory delight."

Wendy snorted. "Latifundian? Please!"

"Well, you are."

"That's beside the point." She gave him a look and asked, "You talking like thataway for _my_ benefit? I never hear you spout such flowery verbiage when you speak with Quinn or Cinnamon or any of the other furs around here."

Pushing one of the fittings home, he glanced over at her with a small smile. "It isn't so much that it's _for_ you." He cocked his head to one side and peered off in the direction of the ceiling for several seconds before turning his eyes back to her. "I guess it's really more _because_ of you. You and I have been trading obscure words for a while now. As you know, I have what you might term an exhaustive vocabulary, a situation which amounts to a disability in a region where hardly anyone else knows more than four or five thousand words."

She smirked and replied, "You can't help your omnilegence. And the 'disability' comes with the territory."

"Possibly. As Yeats said, 'Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people'. It does no good to use exactly the right word if no one else knows it. That isn't communication; it's just showing off."

"I'll concede that."

He turned off the torch and began putting away the tools.

"But you! Hunh. You're sharp. You have _never_ given me that blank look, that 'Why aren't you speaking English?' look I used to get occasionally from some of the locals, nor are you ever guilty of acyrology in your own speech. You have an effortless facility with your mother tongue that is a joy to hear, a dolorifuge for my usual, humdrum day. Your conversation is lively, cogent, and articulate, and our bouts of badinage are a delight. We can truly communicate; we can talk." He leaned back over and felt around under the freezer for the small side-pliers, pulled them out and placed them in the box.

"So I do." After adjusting the fit of a couple of the tools in their compartments, he looked fully into her eyes. "Talking with you is like … well, I don't consider myself to be much of a sybarite anymore, but our conversations give me great pleasure." His smile was genuine. "It's an indulgence for which I've developed something of an addiction."

Wendy blinked at him. Her throat felt funny, and she couldn't understand why she blushed so fully then. Several things flashed through her mind in less than a second, all having to do with her very unusual (for her) relationship with Karl. She stood up and went over to the door, knotting and twisting the hem of her apron distractedly.

Karl closed and locked the toolbox, then swiveled around, still seated on the floor, to face her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . . I've made you uncomfortable again, haven't I?"

Wendy smoothed down the fur on her muzzle, then looked at him, tiny creases forming between her eyes. "You wanna hear something goofy?"

He smiled and nodded in answer.

She got a sheepish look on her face. "I can't think of the right word to describe _what_ I feel."

Karl, being on the floor already, had no trouble rolling around on it while laughing. He kept it up for some time. After several seconds, Wendy started chuckling, too. That is the main reason why neither of them heard the well-muffled engines of the snowmobiles that were closing in on the house.

##

Parka cleared the woods first, but the rest were mere seconds behind. They got to within seventy or eighty meters of the house and killed the engines, coasting the rest of the way. Cadman sighted movement in one of the rear rooms, and unlimbered his weapon.

##


	19. Chapter 8 Timing Is Everything Part C

_**Chapter Eight - Timing Is Everything – Part C**_

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_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

##

_** __Saturday 04 February, 11:07am **_

Karl was, at least, able to navigate to the kitchen under his own power, although a low chuckle escaped him every few seconds. Wendy went to the refrigerator and got out the milk, setting it down next to the two tall glasses on the counter. Karl leaned over one of the pies and sniffed appreciatively.

"Holy gourmet, Batman! How do you do this?" He pinched off a bit of the crust and ate it, chewing slowly, his eyes rolling up into his head. "Wendy. . . . Oh, my. . . . Oh you kid. This is pastry perfection. I cannot believe. . . . Were this any lighter it would float out of the pan." He looked around. "Where's a knife? I need an im-plee-ment of destruction."

She chuckled. "Top drawer, Mr. Dylan. No, over there, behind you. Yeah, that one." _What a nut!_

He selected an appropriate blade and dropped into a crouch, stalking the pie, and making Wendy laugh. "Roight! Look sharp now, leftenant! We'll 'ave to come up on 'is bloind soide, else the ruddy blighter'll chuck it!"

Several things happened in quick succession.

There was a loud, concussive **CRA-BOOM** from outside.

Wendy gave a startled yelp and jerked around in that direction. So the bullet that Candle had fired, meant to sever her spine at the base of her neck, instead merely grazed the fur of her left cheek. She did get showered with broken glass, though, and reacted appropriately: she screamed and hit the floor.

Scant milliseconds after the explosion, Karl had leaped toward Wendy, and so the bullet Popper aimed at his head hit him in the upper arm, while Flintstone's first three rounds got him across the right side of his chest. He was knocked over behind the table, out of the way of the subsequent hail of gunfire.

Then there was another blast from somewhere in the front of the house.

##

"What the _hell?_" Starr had just caught the trail of the descending flare out of the corner of his left eye an instant before it detonated, and whipped his head around to see. The resulting magnesium burst left little in his field of vision but bright purple spots. That set him off on a string of sulphurous oaths. He jerked the snowmobile to a stop.

Borren had his automatic out. "_Where's that sumbitch?_" He scanned the field to try to pinpoint their adversary, but Capra had been very quick with his second flare, and it was already coming down when Borren spoke. He, too, got a case of temporary blindness as a reward for his vigilance.

##

Just over one second later, Karl was dragging Wendy at high speed into the hallway. When they were out of sight of the windows, he crouched against the outer wall, placing her behind him, and slammed into full Augment mode.

They scooted along the Rear Hall at a good clip, and came to the corner leading into the Main Hall. Karl stared at the corner, his paw barely brushing the wall. He waited just over six seconds, then crouched low, motioning for Wendy to do the same.

He moved at exactly the same instant that a large brown bear swung around the corner, weapon to the fore. Karl impacted the bear, knocking the rifle upward with one paw. His other paw flickered past his adversary's neck, hardly seemed even to make contact, but the bear dropped lifeless to the carpet, his head at an impossible angle. Karl snagged the rifle in mid-air, then cursed softly as he noted the print-recognition pad beside the trigger. The weapon was useless to him. He snapped it in half easily and tossed the pieces a few meters into the main hall, then looked over at Wendy. She was staring at him, her bright brown eyes huge, both paws pressed hard against her muzzle. He pointed down the hall.

"Let's go."

She didn't move. She _couldn't_ move.

"We have very little time. Come on!"

She looked at the bear, then back at him, and said, "He's dead."

"Yes."

"You killed him."

"As if I had a choice. Please, Wendy, I'll explain later. I've got to get you stashed." There was a crashing sound from the kitchen. He grabbed her paw as her head whirled around in that direction. They shot to the other end of the rear hallway. Wendy had never covered twenty-five meters so quickly in her life. There was a large storeroom at the end, but Karl headed for a much smaller room on the left, just around the corner, that had contained a coal-fired water heater in the distant past. He opened the door and propelled both of them through it into the small chamber, closing the door gently behind them. He placed one finger over his lips and made a small "shhh" sound, then spent several seconds concentrating with his fingertips pressed lightly against the walls. She noted that he had retained the carving knife: it was stuck into his waistband.

He spoke in very low tones. "Two of these walls are stone. That should afford you some protection." He had her stand in the corner where the stone walls met, looked around in several directions for a couple of seconds, and then moved to the door. "I'll be right back. Don't move. And don't worry. These guys are about to find out just how big a mistake they've made."

Wendy seemed to snap out of it and grabbed his arm. "What are you _doing_?" The question was almost a hiss.

His smile was unpleasantly bleak. He pulled a small, round object from a pouch under his shirt. "A little exterminating. We seem to have a pest problem."

Wendy realized her paw was wet where she was holding him. She jerked it back and looked at it.

"You were hit! Karl!"

"_Sshhhh!_ Don't worry." He was still smiling. "It isn't the first time. And evidently it won't be the last. You just stay put." He leaned over and gently kissed her on the forehead. "As I said, I'll be right back."

He closed the door. Wendy stared at it. And twelve seconds later all hell broke loose.

She started violently when automatic-weapons fire erupted overhead. She heard and felt a loud _**bump**_, then silence. A few seconds later, more gunfire, from somewhere else in the house. It sounded like two weapons, maybe three, and went on for some time. A distant crash registered, then another, then another, followed immediately by three explosions and a faint scream of pain. The house shook, and dust settled on her fur. She heard no other sounds for half a minute.

Her heart was racing so, she felt sure it was going to leave her chest.

There was one more explosion and more gunfire, very close this time, but brief. Then Karl opened the door. He appeared to be undamaged, or at least no more so than he had been earlier. He was breathing evenly, and although his movements were incredibly quick, they were so fluid he did not appear to be in a hurry.

"This way. We'll go up the service stairs." He took her paw and led her out into the hall. She followed him in a semi-daze.

She was looking at him with a mixture of fear and fascination. It was running through her mind – again – that she didn't actually know that much about him on a personal level. Although she'd grown increasingly frank with him about the bumps and bruises of her life, they had not delved much into his past in the time they had spent together. Hell, for that matter she still didn't even know exactly how old he was. He was adept at turning the subject away from his history and back to her. It was flattering, and usually she enjoyed it. But now she wished she'd been a bit more inquisitive. _He's been a good friend – or so I thought – and he's really helpful. But he's always been so … so private. What can you truly learn about someone who refuses to open up to you? _

_Who is he?_

##

Starr and Borren were slowly blinking the sight back into their tortured retinas as they listened to the nascent war going on inside the huge house. Borren cocked an ear at one of the explosions.

"Dammit! … DAMMIT! That ain't one of ours! Whatnhell is he doing packin' that kinda ordnance?"

"Shut UP!" Starr could see fairly well now. He winced at the sound of a ragged scream_. Sounds like Flintstone._ "That flare might have just saved our skins, bucko. I think he was expecting us."

"How could he _possibly_ know we were coming?"

"Beats hell outta me. You got a better explanation?"

Borren blinked and slowly shook his head.

"What I thought. Let's tool on around to the back of the house and keep an eye or three open."

Borren groused, "We ain't got three eyes between us yet!"

"Don't wad, man. We'll get him when he leaves." He patted the rocket launcher fixed to the left side of the snowmobile's hood. "Just you wait."

##

They got to the landing at the top of the spiral stairway, and Karl stopped, motioning for her to be still and quiet. They held the pose for twenty seconds or so, then they were hurrying along the narrow Servant's Walk toward the front of the house.

They cut left, went along a short hall, and entered the Receiving Room of the Fairy-Tale Suite. Aside from a few bullet holes in the floor and ceiling, it looked completely normal. Karl guided her over to the French doors, and eased one of them open. They stepped out onto the upper porch where they could see the great sweep of yard spread out before them. The powersled was below and almost in front of their position. Karl whispered, "There are still two of them left, but they're headed around to the back of the house. I don't think they ever came inside in the first place. We'll get us some gone in just a minute."

She whispered back, "What do you mean?"

He pulled a small rectangular thing from one of his pockets and depressed a button on its surface. The windshell on the powersled parted down the middle and slid open silently, shedding its light burden of snow, the two halves disappearing into the sides of the craft. As Wendy was watching this Karl picked her up, eliciting a small _yip_. He handled her fifty-odd kilograms of mass with no apparent effort.

"I mean this."

With Wendy tucked under one arm, Karl vaulted the railing on the second story porch. Despite the more-than-six-meter drop, he landed on his feet and ran over to the power sled. Tossing Wendy into the passenger seat, he then hopped on, and fired it up. He hit a lever on the console and the windshell _whapped_ into place, arcing up from either side to meet at the zenith. Then they took off, with rather more acceleration than Wendy would have thought possible.

"Hang on, eh?"

Wendy wasn't sure if she _could_ hang on. The landing had pretty much knocked the wind out of her. But she did manage to get a grip on the seat belt _– Seat belt? This is a five-point harness! – _before Karl made the first evasive maneuver.

##

Starr's head jerked around when he heard the whine of the powersled's turbofan. Cursing nonstop, he whipped the snowmobile around, shifted the engine to high speed, and made for the front yard.

Borren observed drily, still rubbing his eyes, "Maybe we should have wasted a rocket on that fancy sled of his first."

"Shut up," suggested his partner. He made the southern wall, turned west, and gave the engine all it would take. The powersled was halfway down the long meadow and picking up speed. The craft itself was half-hidden by the snow-spray it kicked up, but Starr was confident of his abilities with the rockets. _All right, you bastard, take this!_ He fired the launcher.

##

The wind from the sled's turbofan did kick up quite a cloud of fine spray, which is probably the main reason the first projectile missed them. The explosion, however, rocked them hard over to the left. Karl wrestled for control, then gunned it down the hill toward the road. The second missile hit a good twenty meters behind them as the sled sailed over the drainage ditch. They landed on the far side and headed for the trees at almost a hundred-fifty klicks. Over the low roar of the air whipping past, Wendy could hear the rumble of another engine, only it sounded more like a standard snowmobile. She hazarded a peek backwards and confirmed that they had pursuit. Two furs on a white, high-speed rig, only a few seconds behind them. One began firing an automatic weapon.

Karl glanced over at her. "Get down. Behind the seat."

She slid down onto the floorboard. "Who the _**hell**_ are they?"

"Former adversaries."

A couple of bullets ricocheted off the fan cowling and Wendy yelped, trying to make herself as small as possible. "You mean you _**know**_ those bastards?"

"Yah. I recognized one of the others. Unfinished business."

Another slug hit the windshell, leaving a long, thin streak of metal on the transparent surface. Wendy cringed. Karl spoke without looking at her.

"You'll be okay as long as you stay down there. The seat back is titanium." He rapped once on the shell with his knuckles. "And the shell's bullet-resistant."

"Maybe. But you're not. How's your arm?"

"It's fine. Hold tight."

And she did. While being shot at was indeed a novel experience calculated to get one's heart tripping along at a merry pace, it wasn't precisely the kind of excitement she craved. She didn't like it now any more than she had at Michael Truefoot's place.

"Can you outrun 'em?"

The third missile went long, exploding forty meters in front of them and off to the right. Karl actually _grinned_ down at her!

But he made no other answer. They had reached the first edges of the thin forest, and he chose the biggest gap in them he could see. He opened a panel in the dashboard and flipped a switch inside. Then he had to pay _very_ close attention to his steering.

Three seconds later, an unbelievably violent _**HRUMP**_ jolted them forward, notwithstanding the speed they were already making. The sled caromed off two small trees before Karl could get it back under control. He swerved around so they were facing back the way they had come, and killed the engine. For maybe a quarter of a minute he scanned the sparse, winter-bare vegetation and what he could see of the meadow, then turned the fan back on at low speed. They approached the scene slowly, and stopped some dozen meters away. Wendy's ears rang with the shock of the explosion.

She saw a large crater in the snow, half-a-dozen shattered tree trunks, and bits of dirt and rock thrown far all around. "What happened?" Her own voice sounded hollow in her tortured ears.

"I released a couple of proximity mines in the path I figured they'd have to take. They must have ridden over them."

She looked over at him, stunned. "Proximity mines?"

"Yah."

"Mines? As in _**boom?**_ Mines?"

"You heard them detonate, did you not?"

She looked back at the crater in disbelief. _He outfitted his sled with mines. Big ones. We're riding around in a bomb._ "Whatever for? Did you _expect_ to be attacked?"

"Call it the caution born of experience."

"But where did you get …"

Something fell onto the windshell with a wet plop, startling Wendy and prompting her to glance in its direction. It slid slowly down the curved surface, leaving a red smear behind. She recoiled violently and looked around to see where it had come from. Then she _really_ saw the rest of the damage for the first time.

There were jagged hunks of metal scattered through the trees. Red gobbets of … _something_ dripped from nearby branches to splatter in the snow. She felt her gorge rise, and a paw shot up to her mouth. Karl flipped the windshell down and helped her out. She staggered over to lean against a tree, trying to catch her breath, until she noticed a piece of jawbone, teeth still attached, imbedded in the trunk. At that point she felt compelled to lose her breakfast.

"Here."

Wendy looked up. He stood by her side, holding out a bottle of water.

"You'll want to rinse your mouth out, eh?"

She took the water, none too steadily, and got rid of some of the foul taste. Then she walked slowly over to the sled, giving him the bottle as she passed. She pulled her tail around in front of her, sat down in the passenger seat and stared off into the trees for a moment, shivering.

"I'm cold."

"Ayah, imagine you are."

Moving around to the rear of the sled, he opened a storage hatch. He removed a thick blanket, closed the panel, and went over to Wendy, offering her the wrap. She took it, and he watched while she spent a few moments getting cocooned. Then she leaned against the seat and closed her eyes.

Karl walked back to the rear of the sled to inspect the propulsion system for damage. Two of the shells had hit the trailing edge of the turbofan cowling, chipping it slightly and leaving dark streaks across the super-hard composite. _Hmm … must've been using armor-piercing._ Another slug had knocked the left-most guide fin slightly askew. He applied some pressure to the fin, pulling it back until he felt it re-seat in its track. It creaked only slightly as it flexed. He noted three more impacts on one of the fan blades, but it didn't look as if they would cause any trouble.

Perhaps forty seconds had passed before he got back into the cockpit and closed the windshell.

"Aren't you cold?"

Her face was turned toward him. She appeared calm, but he knew better. He looked at her steadily for a few seconds. "No."

Pause. Long pause.

He seemed to come to some sort of decision. "It would have to be a lot colder than this before it bothers me."

She returned his steady gaze. "It's gotta be twenty-five below."

"Closer to minus thirty-five."

She paused and considered his answer. "A _lot_ colder?"

One short nod. "A lot."

She noted the thin fabric of his short-sleeved shirt and her eyes narrowed just the tiniest bit. She grunted a short "Hmh" then turned back to face forward and settled down into the seat, pulling the blanket closer. Karl started the fan motor and headed back out of the trees. Wendy didn't say anything else until they were close to the road.

"Should I be expecting any more . . . _unusual_ visitors?"

He gave her that unblinking gaze again, but as she had her eyes closed she took no notice. "That's a possibility."

She growled at that. "Uh-_HUH_. Right. Sure. So what is it? Drugs? Bad debts? Someone not get invited to a party?"

"Wendy, trust me, the less you know, the better off you are."

_Trust you? At one time I thought I __could__ trust you._

She shrugged the blanket off her head so it draped her shoulders, and ran a paw through her headfur. "So, what, do I get mind-wiped now, or do I just disappear?"

They were back on flat ground. He looked sideways at her, his brow furrowing.

"Wendy?"

She continued to stare straight ahead.

"Please?"

Her gaze slid slowly around and locked onto him.

"If it is within my power, I will never allow any harm to come to you." He touched the back of her head lightly, stroked twice gently. "Wendy, I'm so sorry. It was just bad timing that got you in the way today."

Her eyes stung and she drew several deep breaths. In a small, strained voice she said, "Bad timing. . . . . . My _**life**_ is an exercise in bad timing." She shifted away from him in the seat and tightened her grip on the harness as Karl maneuvered the power sled into the road. He turned right and zipped down the fifty meters or so to turn left into the Inn's driveway. They made their way back toward the house in silence, and the closer they got the lower her spirits sank.

##

"Hey, boss, it woiked, dey made it!" Capra was practically jumping up and down on the seat of the snowcat. "_**Damn**_, he's good! I wish ya coulda seen it."

"Thanks be to the Lord for that," said Rajid. _I guess we won't be needing Sinclair after all._ "Can you see what he is doing? I doubt he will remain in the area now."

"Dey're just goin' back ta da house."

"_Back_ to the house?"

"Yeah. Two o' da scumbags never wen' in, Beorn an' da fox hopped outta da second floor porch an' took off in da sled, an' dem low-downs went after 'em. Beorn managed ta blow 'em ta bits someway, I didn' see how. Helluva boom."

Rajid digested this. "Do you think he used one of his custom formulations?"

"No way ta tell. It uz one righteous bang, dough. Gave m'snowcat a nudge."

"Very well. Keep me posted." Rajid put the connection on STANDBY and leaned back in his chair. _What are you up to, Beorn? Years of nothing and then POP! There you are back on the scene, but totally out of character._ He pulled his notebook onto his lap and began typing.

##


	20. Chapter 8 Timing Is Everything Part D

_**Chapter Eight - Timing Is Everything – Part D**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

##

_** __Saturday 04 February, 11:13am **_

Because there hadn't been a square corner or a straight line in the works, Wendy fit all of the windows on the first floor of the Folly by paw. The framing and leading of the glass had turned out beautifully, and she'd been inordinately proud of them. Now they were blown out into the yard, along with some of the wall and the body of a large ferret. Two of the columns holding up the second floor walk were shattered. Dozens of bullet holes marred the front wall where she had stripped off the many coats of old paint and stained and sealed the beautiful ash clapboard. The stained-glass picture window in the parlor bay was smashed. The upper half of the ornate front door hung crazily from one tortured hinge. They got out of the sled, Wendy wrapping the blanket around her like a poncho.

Inside the house, it was worse. All the carpet runners and much of the marble tiling in the front halls were ruined. The parson's table was smashed. The deacons' chairs were smashed. Down the Main Hall, she could see where one of the matched mirrors had been knocked off the wall and broken. The foyer chandelier had been shot down and lay in glittering pieces on the hardwood.

Woodenly, she walked over and peered into the parlor. The mangled corpse of a tiger was imbedded in the baby grand; it had skidded over to the wall and fetched up against the stone fireplace. She could tell it was good for nothing but kindling now. _ Well. I guess I can postpone my piano lessons._

She crossed the main hall and looked into the library. It had escaped practically unscathed. _Fat lot of good that did . . . I won't have time to read anything._

She continued down the main hall to where it intersected the rear hall to the kitchen. The bear Karl had . . . they had encountered first was still lying there at the corner.

Karl watched her closely. He wasn't sure how she would react and wanted to be ready if the shock overcame her.

She simply stepped around the bear and headed for the kitchen. The main pantry had evidently received a bomb. It was a total loss._ Just my luck. Hey, Wendy, what's for supper? Sautéed sheet-rock? Ceiling Joist Surprise?_ They had to pick their way through the ruined cans, bags, and boxes of food, and the remains of the framing, ducking around the chunk of ceiling that hung down to within a meter and a half of the floor. She sneezed twice from the dust they kicked up: powdered spices covered everything.

The new drywall on most of the refurbished walls was riddled with holes of various sizes. _Gonna need lots of joint compound._

There were two dead in the kitchen itself. A doberman made a crumpled heap in the middle of the floor, and a cougar lay across the sink with its head through the window. _No, wait, that's wrong. Its head WOULD have been through the window, had it still been attached_. A winter breeze blew gently through the shattered pane, over the corpse in the sink, carrying with it the bitter cold and the smell of death.

She stood still in the doorway, staring at them. Karl moved past her, collected the bodies and took them out the back door. He tossed them into the snow beside the woodpile, then sighed deeply, shaking his head. _They'll be __stiff__ stiffs in the morning._ He headed back indoors.

She had sat down at the breakfast table, leaned her elbows on it, and cradled her head in her paws. One tear made its unhurried way down to the tip of her muzzle.

_So much work. _

_So much time. _

It was beginning to get quite cold in the kitchen.

Wendy's head sank to the table. Her shoulders shook slightly as the tears flowed more freely, streaming through the fur on her cheeks. Karl walked over and put a paw on her head. He let his fingers brush slowly and lightly down to the middle of her back.

Again. . . .

Once more. . . .

There was no reaction. He sighed again.

He looked up at the clock over the doorway and did a quick mental calculation. It had been about six minutes since the first explosion. He realized they hadn't much time.

"Wendy, I need for you to listen to me for a minute."

She moved her head so that her face was turned in his direction, but the tears still ran from between closed eyelids.

"There is a high probability that a back-up team, possibly more than one, will be here soon. We have to leave."

That got her attention. She sat up and used both paws to wipe some of the moisture from her eyes and face, then looked at him with a puzzled expression. She sniffed and dabbed her nose on her apron. "We?"

He nodded.

She looked indignant. "Where do you get this '_we'_ stuff?"

"We can't stay here. It isn't safe. We have to go. Now."

Wendy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then wiped her eyes again. "Wrong! _**We**_ don't have to do anything!" She crossed her arms and stared at him, a scowl twisting her features. "Karl, I don't pretend to understand any of this." Her expression hardened as her initial despair transformed to anger. "I don't know why a bunch of lunatics I've never seen before _in my life_ would want to come in here and blow my house to hell-and-gone." She stood up and leaned her paws on the table, glaring at him. "But I'd be willing to place a small wager that it's your fault."

He opened his mouth to try to explain, but she cut him off abruptly.

"I can't even hazard a guess as to what went on between you and them before today. I don't _want_ to know what you did to piss them off. I don't know how they found you, and I don't know why they decided to pick now to let you know how they felt, and to tell you the truth, I really don't give a flying_**fuck**_!" She'd built up a pretty good head of steam. "But I do know it doesn't have _anything_ to do with _**me**_! So please just leave! Take your 'bad timing' and go screw up somebody else's life."

Karl's shoulders drooped just a bit. He let a slow count of five go by, then he said, "I hope you don't really mean that."

The fire in her eyes dimmed and guttered out. She slumped back into the chair. "I don't know what I mean." She rested her head on one paw and stared out the ruined back door. "In the last, what, maybe five minutes, I've had eight months worth of my work, _hard_ work, demolished." She looked directly at him. "How am I supposed to feel?"

She sighed. And sighed again, more deeply. Her eyes began to tear up again. "Just let me alone. I've got way too much to do here now, thanks to your 'buds', to go haring around the countryside looking for more of 'em." Her gaze roamed around the shattered kitchen and she shook her head. "I need a broom."

Karl placed a paw on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. "Wendy, you aren't thinking this through. Please consider for a moment. If I leave and they come here and find you, they will kill you. Painfully. It won't matter to them whether you had any culpability or not. They are _terrorists_. I don't really think any one of them is actually sane."

He moved a chair around and sat on it, facing her. "You'll have to leave here and not return, at any rate not for a long time. It is possible that they don't know much about you. They may have been following me and just took the first opportunity that presented itself to try to take me out. If that _is_ the case, you might be able to come back here in a few months. If they already had you designated as a target because of your association with me, well. . . ." He raised one eyebrow and turned down a corner of his mouth. "You'd be better off disappearing entirely."

She shook her head and smacked one paw on the table. "No! This is **MY HOUSE**!" Her face set into lines of absolute determination. "Do you have any idea how much I have invested in this thing? Not the … it isn't … I don't just mean the money … I mean me! Myself! I've invested _myself_ here." She turned away from him and lifted both paws briefly, then let them fall. "This was what I wanted to do. This was my ticket out."

She spun back to him and took one of his paws, looking intently into his face, trying to make him understand. "I know that, recently, things have been kinda rocky, what with the bad weather and lack of customers, but … but, see … I've really fallen in love with this place, with this … this area, these people who live here, the life I've b … built." She stopped for a few seconds to get a grip on herself. "This is going to be something that _matters_! I can't just let it go. It's mine. Part of _me_. It's … it's like it might be my last chance." Her voice cracked, and she blinked rapidly to stop the tears from coming again. "Nothing that I've ever done before …" The breath caught in her throat. "Nothing ever lasted, ever worked. Not really. Not my family, not my schooling, n-not my m-m-marriage, not m-my ca-career. N-not my …" She sniffled hard and leaned her head down slowly onto her paws. "My being – being – a m-mother." She started crying in earnest then, and folded over onto Karl's lap. "And – and now it's t-too … too late, and I'm – I'm t-too ol-old, and there's n-no … no time, and …" He held her close, his own tears searching him out as she gave in fully to her grief.

He leaned over and kissed her headfur tenderly_. "Wendy. Nicu was right. __My__ Wendy. I'm so sorry."_ He picked her up, as one might a child, and carried her through the house and out the front door. She was shaking uncontrollably, both from the racking sobs and the biting cold. Karl placed her gently into the sled and tucked the blanket back up around her, then fastened her in with the harness. Her sorrow had gotten a full grip on her, and she didn't seem to be paying much attention to anything.

He climbed into the cockpit, closed the windshell, and strapped himself in. After turning the engine back on, he activated a heads-up display and pulled up the scanner subroutine. He did a perimeter scan at half a kilometer, then at one, then at two. Then he scowled. "Fast. They work _very_ fast."

A message flashed across the bottom of the panel indicating that a security threat back at the Shop had been neutralized. His muzzle twisted in a predatory grin as he punched in the acknowledgement code. _So there were more of them … 'were' being the operative term._

He opened up the turbofan and they _whished_ down the grade. When he got to the main road, he turned north and increased power until they were making 250 klicks, which was near the limit of maneuverability given the sled's current configuration. At that speed he was fairly sure that no other ground-based vehicle would be able to catch them. At one point they hurtled past a ragged, hulking figure moving through the woods toward the Inn, but it was too far back in the trees for Karl to notice.

##

The gaunt, black wolf jerked his head up as the powersled flashed by in front of him on the road. The patch of white fur on his forehead began to throb. He tracked the progress of the sled, his bloodshot eyes narrowing. Then he threw his head back and howled his frustration to the silent forest.

##

Karl did another scan every minute, and noted with satisfaction how rapidly his pursuer fell behind. He kept up the pace for another twenty kilometers or so, then decided it would be safe to reconfigure. He played some more with the display.

At the rear of the sled, two panels slid back to reveal the thrust vents of a pair of liquid-fuel rockets. At the nose of the sled, a slender triangular fin moved into position. Near the back, two much larger ones clicked into place.

"Wendy?" Her crying had become much more subdued, but had not, by any means, stopped. Nevertheless, she looked at him when he spoke her name. Her face tore at his heart. "Wendy, I want you to put your head back against the rest. We're going to be feeling some g's."

She frowned, sniffed, and used the edge of the blanket to dab at her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"You remember this morning when you said you'd bet the sled could really fly?"

She nodded.

"I know you meant that metaphorically, but … well, I wish the circumstances could have been different, but you're going to get your wish. Hold on tight."

Her eyes got very large. "You mean … you mean this thing really _can_ fly?"

"For a short while. Fifteen or sixteen minutes. I only have about a three hundred kilometer range." He reached down and pulled a control stick out of the center console. "Here we go."

The turbofan slowed, tilted backward and slid into a large compartment on top of the sled's rear deck. When the rockets kicked in, the acceleration peeled Wendy's lips back. They took off at a good angle, but leveled out at around 700 meters. The acceleration quickly died away as they reached their cruising speed of 1100 klicks.

"So where are we going?" Her voice was almost normal.

He was pleased with her question. He smiled at her and said, "Canada."

##

Capra slowed the snowcat, pulled over to the side of the road, and stopped. They were already out of range. He shook his head slowly several times as he stared off into the sky, then he opened a channel to headquarters.

"Rajid here."

"Boss, you ain't _never_ gonna believe dis."

. . .

. . .

. . .

**Here Ends Book Six ****of the Gone Wylde saga,**

**"No Quarter Given"**

**. . .**

**The next major story arc begins in Book Seven:**

**"The Joining"**


End file.
